A Changed Heart: A Novel

by May Agnes Fleming

"Well, Wyndham, why wait? Go on. I am waiting to hear this most extraordinary affair explained."

"You all here in Speckport thought Nathalie Marsh committed suicide—did you not?" said Mr. Wyndham, looking up. "It is such a charitable place this town of yours, and your good people are so wonderfully ready to place the worst construction on everything, that you never thought she might have fallen in by accident—did you?

"It looked very suspicious," said Val. "Heaven knows how some of us pitied her, poor girl! but still——"

"But still you gave her credit for suicide. Let me restore her character. She never for a moment thought of self-destruction. I have her own solemn word for it. She was heart-broken,—despairing—my own injured darling!—but all the teachings of her life told her suicide was the only crime for which God has no mercy. She never thought of suicide on the night she wandered down to the old wharf. Most miserable she was. Perhaps the wretched night was in harmony with her great trouble; but she did not go there to look for death. She missed her footing on the slimy, rotten plank, and fell in, and from that moment her story—as far as you know it—ends."

Val nodded. He was smoking, and it was too much trouble to remove the cigar to speak.

"She was saved almost by a miracle. A passing boat heard the splash and her cry for help, and rowed to the spot. They saw her as she arose, and saved her, and one man on board recognized her. The man's name was Captain Locksley. Do you remember it?"

"Locksley!" cried Val. "Captain Frank Locksley of the 'Southern Cross?' Know him? Yes, as well as I know you! He was over head and ears in love with Nathalie, himself."

"Yes, I know. He recognized her, and would have returned with her to the shore; but she positively refused to go. She would die, she cried out, if she did not get away from this horrible place. Captain Locksley took her on board of his ship. There was a woman there, the wife of the steward, and she took charge of the poor, deranged girl. Captain Locksley sailed that night. He was off on a three-years' voyage; but on his way he was to touch at New York. The evening before they reached that city, he made an offer of his hand to the poor girl he had saved. He knew her story. He loved her and pitied her; but she refused. She only wanted to be away from Speckport. She would remain in New York. One place was as good as another, and a great city the best of all; but her lot was dust and ashes. She would never marry, she told him. Captain Locksley had a cousin, the wealthy manager of a fashionable Broadway theater, and, as a favor, the manager consented to receive Nathalie into his corps. Her rôle was a very simple one—walking lady at first, coming on only to stare at the audience at first. But my poor girl's beauty, though the shadow only of the brightness that had been, made her rise. She took minor parts, and they made her sing when they found what a superb voice she possessed. Her voice, the manager told me once, might make her fortune—at least it would have made the fortune of any other woman; but my darling had lost life, and with it all ambition. She never would be a good actress, but the audience looked at her a great deal; and the mournful melody of her voice, whether she talked or sang, had a charm for all. It paid the manager; so he kept her, and doled out her weekly pittance, and she took it uncomplainingly. I have sometimes wondered since how it was no one from Speckport ever saw and recognized her; but, I dare say, if they did, they would merely set it down as an odd chance resemblance. They were all so certain of her death, and then the false name and the disguising stage-dresses helped to baffle them. It was at the theater I first met her. They took my dramas when I turned dramatist, and I was always there. She attracted me from the beginning. She interested me strongly the first time I saw her, and I found myself pitying her somehow without knowing anything about her. I could not cease thinking of her after. The pale face and mournful blue eyes haunted me wherever I went. I found out she was called Miss Johnson, and that she lodged in a shabby house in a shabby street; and that was all any one heard. But of my own knowledge I knew she was good and fair, and that great sorrow, not sin, had darkened her young life. Why it was I loved her, I never could tell. It way my fate, I suppose; for my struggles were vain, and only left me more helplessly entangled. The manager laughed at me; my friends talked of acts of lunacy and genteel private lunatic asylums for me; but it was all useless. I loved her, and was not to be laughed out of it, and one night the truth broke from me. I begged her to tell me who she was and to become my wife; but she refused. She refused, Blake, to do either; but she was very gentle and womanly saying the cruel words. She was very grateful to me, she said, my poor dear! but she could not be unjust enough to take me at my word. The fancy for her would soon leave me. She was not worthy to be the wife of any good man. I must forget her. I must never speak to her like this again. Blake, I went home that night in a sort of despair. I hated and despised myself for my pitiful weakness. I tried to conquer myself, and failed miserably. I could not stay away from the theater. I could not forget her. I could not do anything I ought to do. I went to the house where she lodged, and found out all they knew about her there. It was very little; but it was all good. I made the manager tell me again what his cousin, Captain Locksley, had told him of her, and I ascertained that Captain Locksley was an honorable and truthful man. He had said she had undergone a great deal of trouble, and had met with heavy reverse of fortune, but that she was the best and purest of beings, and he trusted his cousin would always be her true friend. He told him he had long loved her, and that he had asked her to be his wife, and she had refused. I knew, therefore, there was nothing worse than worldly misfortune in the past life of the woman I had loved. Once again I sought her out, and implored her to leave her hard life and be my wife, keeping her past life secret if she chose; and once again I was refused.

"After that second refusal," Mr. Wyndham said, throwing his smoked-out cigar in the fire, and lighting another, "I gave up hope entirely. There was such a steady, inflexible resolution on her poor, pale, worn face, that a despairing conviction of the uselessness of all further attempts came upon me. Still I could not go away—I despised myself for my pitiful weakness—but I could not, Blake, I could not! I loved her, and I was a weak, irresolute coward, and lingered about the theater only to get a word from her, a look at her, as she went past, or follow her at a distance through the city streets, to see that she got safely home. I despaired, but I could not fly. And one cold March morning, as I sat at the window of my hotel, staring dreamily out, she passed by; trying to fix my thoughts on the manuscript before me, and unable to think of anything but the pale actress, a waiter came in and handed me a letter. It was a very large letter, in a strange female hand I had never seen before; but I knew it was from her—my darling! I tore off the envelope; it contained half a dozen closely-written sheets, and was signed "Nathalie Marsh." I knew the actress only as Miss Johnson; but I never thought it was her real name. I knew now what it was. It was a very long letter; she told me where she came from, and why she was here, an actress. She told me her whole story; her sad, pitiful story of wrong and suffering; the fortune she had lost; the brother wrongfully condemned; and the treachery—the false, cruel, shameful treachery—of the man she had loved and trusted. She told me all, in a simple, truthful, earnest way that went to my heart; and then she told me her reasons for telling it. I was her only friend, she said. I had always been good and kind to her—my poor, little, forlorn lamb!—and she trusted and believed in me. She did not love me; she never could love any one again; but she honored and esteemed me, and if I could be content with that, she would be my wife—faithful and true until death—on one condition."

Paul Wyndham paused. He had been gazing dreamily into the fire whilst talking, but now he looked hesitatingly at Val Blake.