The Maid of Maiden Lane - Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (cat reading book .txt) 📗

Hyde Manor for New York the next mail:

To Miss CORNELIA MORAN:

Because you are very dear to one of my dear kindred, and because I feel that you are worthy of his great love, I also love you. Will you trust me now? There has been a sad mistake. I believe I can put it right. You must recollect the day on which George Hyde wrote asking you to fix an hour when he could call on Doctor Moran about your marriage. Did any other lover ask you on that day to marry him? Was that other lover Mr. Van Ariens? Did you write to both about the same time? If so, you misdirected your letters; and the one intended for Lord Hyde went to Mr. Van Ariens; and the one intended for Mr. Van Ariens, went to Lord Hyde. Now you will understand many things. I found out this mistake through the young lady Mr. Van Ariens is intending to marry. Can you send to me, for Lord Hyde, a copy of the letter you intended for him. When I receive it, you may content your heart. I may never see you again, but I would like you to remember me by this act of loving kindness; and I wish you all the joy in your love, that I could wish myself. The shadows will soon flee away, and when your wedding bells ring, I shall know; and rejoice with you, and with my dear cousin. Delay not to answer this, why should you delay your happiness? I send you as love gifts my thoughts, desires, prayers, all that is best in me, al! that I give to one high in my esteem, and whom I wish to place high in my affection, This to your hand and heart, with all sincerity, ANNIE HYDE.

When she had signed her name she was full of content, her face was transfigured with the joy she foresaw for others, and she thought not of her own gain, though it was great--even the riches of that divine self- culture, that comes only through self-sacrifice. She calculated her letter would reach Cornelia about the end of September, and she thought how pleasantly the hope it brought, would brighten her life. And without permitting Hyde to suspect any change in his love affair, she very often led the conversation to Cornelia, and to the circumstances of her life. Hyde was always willing to talk on this subject, and thus she learned so much about Arenta, and Madame Jacobus, and Rem Van Ariens, that the people became her familiars. Arenta particularly interested her, and she spoke and thought continually of the gay little Dutch girl among the human tigers of Paris. And the thought of her ended ever in a silent prayer for her safety. "I must ask some strong angel to go and help her," she said to Hyde, "a city full of blood, must be a city full of evil spirits, and she will need the wings of angels round her--like a pavilion--so when she comes into my mind I say 'angels of deliverance go to her.' And I think she must be in a great strait now, or I should not feel so constrained to pray for her."

"And you believe such prayer avails for deliverance, Annie?"

"I am sure it avails. When we invoke earnestly and sincerely the help of any higher and stronger intelligence than ourselves, the angels are with us. They come when the heart calls them; for they are appointed to be ministers unto those who shall inherit eternal life." And Hyde listened silently, yet the words fell into his deepest consciousness, and after many years brought him strength and consolation when he needed it. Thus it is, that a good woman is a priestess standing by the altar of the heart, thus it is, that the very noblest education any man ever gets is what some woman--mother, wife, sister, friend--gives him.

Certainly the letter sent to Cornelia sped on its way all the more rapidly and joyfully for the good wishes and unselfish prayers accompanying it. The very ship might have known it was the bearer of good tidings; for if there had been one of the mighty angels whose charge is on the great deep at the helm of the Good Intent she could not have gone more swiftly and surely to her haven. One morning, nearly a week in advance of Annie's calculation, the wonderful letter was put into Cornelia's hand. She was passing through the hall on her way to her room, when Balthazar brought in the mail, and she took the little white messenger without any feeling but one of curiosity concerning it. The handwriting was strange, it was an English letter, what could it mean?

Let any one who has loved and been parted from the beloved by some misunderstanding, try to realize what it meant to Cornelia. She read it through in an indescribable hurry and emotion, and then in the most natural and womanly way, began to cry. No one could have loved her the less for that sincere overflow of emotions she could not separate or define, and which indeed she never tried to understand. It was only one wonderful thought she could entertain--IT WAS NOT THE FAULT OF JORIS. This was the assurance that turned her joyful tears into gladder smiles, and that made her step light as a bird on the wing, as she ran down the stairs to find her mother; for her happiness was not perfect till she shared it with the heart that had borne her sorrow, and carried her grief through many weary months, with her.

Oh, how glad were these two women! They were almost too glad to speak. Sitting still was impossible to Cornelia, but as she stepped swiftly to- and-fro across the parlour floor, she stopped frequently at her mother's chair and kissed her. She kissed Annie's letter just as frequently. It was such a gracious, noble letter. It was such a delight to know that friendship so unselfish was waiting for her. It was altogether such a marvellous thing that had come to her, that she could not behave as a superior woman ought to have done. But then she was not a superior woman, she was only lovable and loving, and therefore restless and inconsequent.

In the first hours of her recovered gladness she did not even remember Rem's great fault, nor yet her own carelessness. These things were only accidentals, not worthy to be taken into account while the great sweet hope that had come to her, flooded like a springtide every nook and corner of her heart. In such a mood how easy it was to answer Annie's letter. She recollected every word she had written to Hyde that fateful day, and she wrote them again with a tenfold joy. She told Annie every particular, and she forgot to say a word of reproach concerning the dishonourable retention of her letter by Rem." It is altogether my own fault," she confessed.

Even when this letter was on its way to Annie she was under such excitement that her whole body appeared to think and to feel; her beautiful hair had an unusual freedom, as if some happy wind blew it into exquisite unrestraint; her eyes shone like stars; her garments fluttered; her steps were like dancing; and every now and then, a bar or two of love music warbled in her throat. And oh with what joy the mother watched the return of happiness to her dear child! With her own milk she had fed her. In her own bosom she had carried and tended her. Night and day for nearly twenty years, like a bird, she had feverishly, prayfully, tenderly hovered over her; so there was great joy in the Doctor's home and though he would say little, his heart grew lighter in his wife's and daughter's cheerfulness; for the women in any house make the moral and mental atmosphere of that house just as decidedly, as the sunshine or rain affect the natural atmosphere outside of it.

Now it is very noticeable that when unusual events begin to happen in any life, there is a succession of such events, and not unfrequently they arrive in similar ways. At any rate about ten days after the receipt of Annie's letter, Cornelia was almost equally amazed by the receipt of another letter. It came one day about noon, and a slave of Van Ariens brought it--a piece of paper twisted carelessly but containing these few pregnant words:

Cornelia, dear, come to me. Bring me something to wear. I have just arrived, saved by the skin of my teeth, and I have not a decent garment of any kind to put on. ARENTA.

A thunderbolt from a clear sky could hardly have caused such surprise, but Cornelia did not wait to talk about the wonder. She loaded a maid with clothing of every description, and ran across the street to her friend. Arerita saw her coming, and met her with a cry of joy, and as Van Ariens was sick and trembling with the sight of his daughter, and the tale of her sufferings, Cornelia persuaded him to go to sleep, and leave Arenta to her care. Poor Arenta, she was ill with the privations she had suffered, she was half-starved, and nearly without clothing, but she did not complain much until she had been fed, and bathed, and "dressed" as she said "like a New York woman ought to be."

"You know what trunks and trunks full of beautiful things I took away with me, Cornelia," she complained; "Well I have not a rag left. I have nothing left at all."

"Your husband, Arenta?"

"He was guillotined."

"Oh, my dear Arenta!"

"Guillotined. I told him to be quiet. I begged him to go over to Marat, but no! his nobility obliged him to stand by his order and his king. So for them, he died. Poor Athanase! He expected me to follow him, but I could not make up my mind to the knife. Oh how terrible it was!" Then she began to sob bitterly, and Cornelia let her talk of her sufferings until she fell into a sleep--a sleep easy to see, still haunted by the furies and terrors through which she had passed.

For a week Cornelia remained with her friend, and Madame Jacobus joined them as often as possible, and gradually the half-distraught woman recovered something of her natural spirits and resolution. In this week she talked out all her frightful experiences in the great prison of La Force, and was completely overwhelmed at their remembrance. But the trouble which has been removed, soon grows far off; and Arenta quickly took her place in her home, and resumed her old life. Of course with many differences. She could not be the same Arenta, she had outlived many of her illusions. She took but little interest for a while in the life around her; her thoughts and conversation were still in Paris, and this was evident from the fact, that during the whole week of Cornelia's stay with her, she never once named Cornelia's love, or life, or prospects. Rem she did talk about, but chiefly because he was going to marry an English girl, an intention she angrily deplored.

"I am sure," she said, "Rem might have learned a lesson from my sad fortune. What does he want to marry a foreigner for? He ought to have prevented me from doing so, instead of following my foolish example."

"No one could have prevented you, Arenta. You would not listen even to your father."

"Oh indeed, it was my fate. We must all submit to fate. Why did you refuse Rem?"