Throckmorton: A Novel

by Molly Elliot Seawell

“Don’t reproach me, Judith. But for you I would never have returned. My father and mother know nothing about it. Freke found out they were yet in Richmond. If they had been at Barn Elms, I don’t think I ever would have had the courage to come back. The feeling soon came to me that I had committed a great wrong in marrying Freke; and then—and then—he told me perhaps we weren’t married at all in Virginia, and so I would have to go with him out to the place—somewhere in the West—and be married to him straight and right.”

“If Freke had never committed any other wrong in his whole life, his telling you that made him deserve to be killed!” cried Judith.

“Don’t say a word against Freke,” said Jacqueline, a new anger blazing up in her eyes. “I love Freke; it almost kills me when I think I may never see him again, for I ran away from him. At first I thought all the time of the trouble I should bring upon you all. I could see my father’s gray head sink down in his hands. I could imagine how my mother would shut herself up in her room as she did when Beverley died. They had always thought so little of me that it gave me a kind of triumph when I remembered, ‘They’ll have to think about me now!’”

“And Throckmorton?”

“I never thought about him at all. As Freke said, he was entirely too old for me. But I will not speak of him. He knew I never loved him—or he ought to have known it. Then, when Freke found out that mamma and papa were still in Richmond, it came to me like a flash that I could get home, and I was sure of one friend, and only one in the world now—yourself. And I thought you were so clever you could manage to keep anybody from finding out where I had been. I seemed to hear your voice calling to me all the time, and every moment it seemed to crush me more and more that Freke was a divorced man, and that, however he might say he was free, he was not. So, we were staying at a little town through which the railroad passed, and Freke had to go into Richmond yesterday to get some money, and my conscience suddenly rose up and tortured me, and I couldn’t stay another moment—and, mind you, Judith, I love Freke. So I took the train all alone, and made the boat, and landed at Oak Point about twelve o’clock. I pretended to be surprised that nobody was there to meet me, and said I would walk as far as Turkey Thicket—you know it is only a little way from the landing. But, of course, I did not. Then I was so afraid that some one would see me that, instead of taking the main road, I came through the fields and by-paths. I believe I have walked ten miles instead of six, from Oak Point—and it was raining, too. I was nearly frightened out of my life—frightened by negroes and stray dogs, and afraid that I should see Freke every moment before me, and, if he should overtake me, I knew I should go back with him. I can no more resist him when he is with me than I can stop breathing. Well, with weakness—for I felt ill from the moment I started—and with fear, and being so tired, and the rain, I thought I should die before I reached here. But now I am home—home!—” Jacqueline’s voice rose in a piteous cry. She had been weeping all the time, but now she burst into a perfect tempest of sobs and tears that shook her like a leaf.

In her quiet life Judith had never been brought face to face with any terrible emergency, and this one unnerved and horrified her so that for a time she was as helpless as Jacqueline. She walked the floor, struggling with the wild impulse to send for Throckmorton; that he alone could tell them what to do; and else she and the poor child would sink under the horror of the situation, for to her simple and straightforward mind both conscience and the social code were unalterably opposed to considering a divorced man as a single man. But some instinct of common sense saved her—saved her even from calling Delilah, and caused her to face the thing alone. She gave Jacqueline brandy, she rubbed her vigorously; she even got her up-stairs alone and into her bed. By that time the violence of her emotions was spent; Jacqueline lay in the large four-poster perfectly calm and white. After a while even a sense of physical well-being seemed to possess her; warmth and light and stimulation had their effect. She fell into a heavy sleep, but Judith was terrified to notice her pallor give place to a crimson flush on her face, and her icy hands grow burning hot. By that time Judith’s composure had partly returned. She called Delilah, who came in wondering, and told her briefly that Jacqueline had come home unexpectedly and was not well, without mentioning how she had come from the river-landing. Delilah, who was not of a curious turn, saw for herself that part of Judith’s statement was true, for Jacqueline had a burning fever. It was impossible to get Dr. Wortley before morning, but, like most women who live in the country, Judith could cope with ordinary ailments, and, whenever the doctor was called in, he always found that the proper thing had been done beforehand.

But, besides Jacqueline’s undeniable illness, the thought that tormented Judith was how to keep the dreadful thing that had happened from Jacqueline’s father and mother and from the world. It must inevitably come out that she had not been near Mrs. Steptoe’s, and only the fact that Jacqueline was a poor correspondent had kept it from being known already. On the impulse of the moment, Judith sat down and wrote Mrs. Steptoe a letter, begging her, for General and Mrs. Temple’s sake, not to mention until she heard further from Barn Elms, that Jacqueline had not been with her; and as she wrote hurriedly and nervously, she could hear Jacqueline’s heavy and fitful breathing. Some simple remedies had been applied, but Judith knew that the best thing for her was to sleep, and so her troubled slumber was undisturbed except by her own feverish mutterings. All the time it hung like a sword over Judith. “What will Throckmorton say?” for, of course, he must be the first one to know it; there could be no mercy in deceiving him. Judith, sitting before the fire, gazing into it with troubled eyes and aching heart, began thinking, pitying, praying for Throckmorton. Yes, it would be a frightful blow to him. There would be no need for the wedding-gown now. As this thought occurred to her, Judith rose and, going softly toward the wardrobe where she kept her dainty work, took out the dress, and, unwrapping it from the white cloth in which she laid it away so carefully every night, spread it over her knees. How much love, despair, and torture had been worked into that embroidery! “It is so pretty, it is a pity it can’t be used,” she said to herself, absently, turning the silk about in her fingers; and at that moment she heard a choking, gurgling sound from the bed. Jacqueline was half sitting up, her head supported on her arm, and a thin stream of blood was trickling from her lips.

Judith, who for once lost her presence of mind, ran toward the bed, and, supporting Jacqueline’s head, called loudly for help. In her haste she had thrown the dress almost across Jacqueline, and a few drops of blood fell upon it.