The Dead Letter: An American Romance

by Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

“The same person, sir. Did you know him?”

“I can not say that I was acquainted with him. I do not remember that I ever spoke a word with him. But I knew him, by sight, very well. He had a face which made people look twice at him. I think I bought some trifles in his shop once. And the gossip there was about him at the time he ran away, fixed his name in my memory. I was almost a stranger then in Blankville—had lived there only about a year.”

“How did he come to have any connection with your family, Leesy?”

Miss Sullivan had grown pale during the agitation of our talk, but she flushed again at the question, hesitated, and finally, looking the detective full in the eyes, answered:

“Since you have promised, upon your honor, not to disturb me any further about this matter, and since I am under obligations to you, sir, which I can not forget, I will tell you the rest of the story, a part of which I told you that morning at Moreland villa. I confessed to you, there, the secret of my own heart, as I never confessed it to any but God, and I told you something of my cousin’s history to satisfy you about the child. I will now tell you all I know of George Thorley, which is more than I wish I knew. The first time I ever saw him was over four years ago, a short time after he set up his little shop, which, you recollect, was not far from my aunt’s in Blankville. My aunt sent me, one evening, for something to relieve the toothache, and I went into the nearest place, which was the new one. There was no one in but the owner. I was surprised by the great politeness with which he treated me, and the interest he seemed to take in the case of my aunt. He was a long time putting up the medicine, pasting the label on, and making change, so that I thought my aunt would surely be out of temper before I could bring her the drops. He asked our name, and where we lived, which was all, I thought, but a bit of his blarney, to get the good will of his customers.” (Miss Sullivan usually spoke with great propriety, but occasionally a touch of her mother’s country, in accent or expression, betrayed her Irish origin.) “That was the beginning of our acquaintance, but not the end of it. It was but a few days before he made an excuse to call at our house. I was a young girl, then, gay and healthy; and the plain truth of it is that George Thorley fell in love with me. My aunt was very much flattered, telling me I would be a fool not to encourage him—that he was a doctor and a gentleman—and would keep his wife like a lady—that there would be no more going out to sew and slave for others, if I were once married to him; it was only what she expected of me, that I would at least be a doctor’s wife, after the schooling she had given me, and with the good looks I had. It is no vanity in me, now, to say of this clay, so soon to be mingled with the dust of the earth, that it was beautiful—too much so, alas, for my own peace of mind—for it made me despise the humble and honest suitors who might have secured me a lowly, happy life. Yet it was not that, either, and I’ll not demean myself to say so—it was not because I was handsome that I held myself aloof from those in my own station; it was because I felt that I had thoughts and tastes they could not understand—that my life was above theirs in hope, in aspiration. I was ambitious, but only to develop the best that was in me. If I could only be a needle-woman all my days, then I would be so skillful and so fanciful with my work, as almost to paint pictures with my needle and thread. But this isn’t telling you about George Thorley. From the first I took a dislike to him. I’m not good at reading character, but I understood his pretty thoroughly, and I was afraid of him. I was very cold to him, for I saw that he was of a quick temper, and I did not mean he should say that I had ever encouraged him. I told my aunt I did not think he was a gentleman—I had seen plenty of real gentlemen in the houses where I sewed, and they were not like him. I told her, too, that he had a violent temper, and a jealous disposition, and could not make any woman happy. But she would not think of him in that light; her heart was set on the apothecary’s shop, which, she said, would grow into a fine drug-store with the doctor’s name in gilt letters on the door of his office.

“George soon offered himself, and was terribly angry when I refused him. I believe he loved me, in his selfish way, better than he loved any other human creature. He would not give me up, nor allow me any peace from his persecutions. He dogged my steps whenever I went out, and if I spoke to any other man, it put him in a rage. I got to feeling that I was watched all the time; for sometimes he would laugh in his hateful way, and tell me of things he had seen when I thought him miles away.

“Twice, in particular, I remember of his being in a savage passion, and threatening me. It was after”—here the speaker’s voice, despite of her efforts to keep it steady, trembled and sunk—“he had seen me riding out in the carriage with Mrs. Moreland. He said those people were making a fool of me—that I was so set up, by their attentions, as to despise him. I told him that if I despised him, it was not for any such reason. It was because he behaved so ungentlemanly toward me, spying around me, when he had no business whatever with my affairs. That made him madder than ever, and he muttered words which I did not like. I told him I was not afraid of any mortal thing, and I didn’t think he would frighten me into marrying him. He said he would scare me yet, so that I would never get over it. I think he liked the spirit I showed; it seemed the more I tried to make him hate me, the more determined he was to pursue me. I don’t know how it was that I understood him so well, for in those days there had been nothing whispered against his character. Indeed, people didn’t know much about him; and he got himself into the good graces of some of the leading citizens of Blankville. He had told me something of his history; that is, that his family were English; that he, like myself, was an orphan; that, by dint of good luck, he had got a place in a doctor’s office in one of the towns in this State—one of those humble situations where he was expected to take care of the physician’s horse, drive the carriage, put up medicines, attend upon orders, and any thing and every thing. He was smart and quick; he had many hours of leisure when waiting behind the little counter, and these hours he spent in studying the doctor’s books, which he managed to get hold of one at a time. By these means, and by observing keenly the physician’s methods, his advice to patients who called at the office, and by reading and putting up prescriptions constantly, he picked up a really surprising smattering of science. Making up his mind to be a doctor, and to keep a drug-store (a profitable business, he knew) he had the energy to carry out his plans. How he finally obtained the capital to set up the little business in Blankville, I never understood, but I knew that he attended lectures on surgery, one winter, in New York, and was in a hospital there a short time. All this was fair enough, and proved him ambitious and energetic; but I did not like or trust him. There was something dark and hidden in the workings of his mind, from which I shrunk. I knew him, too, to be cruel. I could see it in his manner of treating children and animals; there was nothing he liked so well as to practice his half-learned art of surgery upon some unfortunate sufferer. The more he insisted on my liking him, the more I grew to dread him.

“Affairs were at this crisis when my cousin came from New York to pay my aunt a visit. Coming to our rooms almost every evening, of course he made her acquaintance immediately. For the purpose of making me jealous, he began to pay the most devoted attention to her. Nora was a pretty girl, with blue eyes and fair hair; an innocent-minded thing, not very sharp, apprenticed to a milliner in the city; she believed all that Doctor Thorley told her, and fell in love with him, of course. When she went away, after her little holiday, George found that, instead of provoking me to jealousy, he had only roused my temper at the way he had fooled Nora. I scolded him well for it, and ended by telling him that I never would speak to him again.

“Well, it was just after that the scandal arose about his causing the death of a person by malpractice. He found it was prudent to run away; so he sold his stock for what he could get, and hid himself in New York. I did not know, at first, where he was; but felt so relieved to be rid of him. I had made up my own mind to go to New York, and get employment in a fancy-store. You know, Mr. Burton, for I once laid my heart before you, what wild, mad, but sinless infatuation it was which drew me there. I am not ashamed of it. God is love. When I stand in his presence, I shall glory in that power of love, which in this bleak world has only fretted and wasted my life. In heaven our whole lives will be one adoration.” She clasped her thin hands together, and turned her dark eyes upward with an expression rapt to sublimity. I gazed upon her with renewed surprise and almost reverence. Never do I expect to meet another woman, the whole conformation of whose mind and heart so fitted her for blind, absolute devotion as Leesy Sullivan’s.

“When I went to the city to see about getting a place, I met my cousin, who told me that she was married to George Thorley, and had been for some weeks; that they were boarding in a nice, quiet place, and that George staid at home a great deal—indeed, he hardly went out at all.