The Maid of Maiden Lane by Amelia E. Barr (free novels to read TXT) 📗

The night so unhappy to Cornelia was very much more unhappy to Hyde. He had sent his letter to her before eleven in the morning, and if Fortune were kind to him, he expected an answer soon after leaving Madame Jacobus. Her departure from New York depressed him very much. She had been the good genius of his love, but he told himself that it had now “grown to perfection, and could, he hoped, stand in its own strength.” Restlessly he watched the hours away, now blaming, now excusing, anon dreaming of his coming bliss, then fidgeting and fearing disappointment from being too forward in its demanding. When noon passed, and one o’clock struck, he rang for some refreshment; for he guessed very accurately the reason of delay.

“Cornelia has been visiting or shopping,” he thought; “and if it were visiting, no one would part with her until the last moment; so then if she get home by dinner-time it is as much as I can expect. I may as well eat, and then wait in what patience I can, another hour or two—yes, it will be two hours. I will give her two hours—for she will be obliged to serve others before me. Well, well, patience is my penance.”

But in truth he expected the letter to be in advance of three o’clock. “Twenty words will answer me,” he thought; “yes, ten words; and she will find or make the time to write them;” and between this hope and the certainty of three o’clock, he worried the minutes away until three struck. Then there was a knock at his door and he went hastily to answer it. Balthazar stood there with the longed-for letter in his hand. He felt first of all that he must be quite alone with it. So he turned the key and then stood a moment to examine the outside. A letter from Cornelia! It was a joy to see his own name written by her hand. He kissed the superscription, and kissed the white seal, and sank into his chair with a sigh of delight to read it.

In a few moments a change beyond all expression came over his face—perplexity, anger, despair cruelly assailed him. It was evident that some irreparable thing had ruined all his hopes. He was for some moments dumb. He felt what he could not express, for a great calamity had opened a chamber of feeling, which required new words to explain it. This trance of grief was followed by passionate imprecations and reproaches, wearing themselves away to an utter amazement and incredulity. He had flung the letter to the floor, but he lifted it again and went over the cruel words, forcing himself to read them slowly and aloud. Every period was like a fresh sentence of death.

“‘YOUR LETTER HAS GIVEN ME VERY GREAT SORROW;’ let me die if that is not what she says; ‘VERY GREAT SORROW. YOU MUST HAVE KNOWN FOR WEEKS, EVEN MONTHS, THAT MARRIAGE BETWEEN US WAS IMPOSSIBLE;’ am I perfectly in my senses? ‘IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN AND ALWAYS WILL BE;’ why, ‘tis heart treason of the worst kind! Can I bear it? Can I bear it? Can I bear it? Oh Cornelia! Cornelia! ‘WE HAVE BEEN SO HAPPY.’ Oh it is piteous, sad. So young, so fair, so false! and she ‘GRIEVES AT MY GOING AWAY,’ and bids me on ‘NO ACCOUNT CALL ON HER FATHER’—and takes pains to tell me the ‘NO IS ABSOLUTE’—and I am not to ‘BLAME HER.’ Oh this is the vilest treachery! She might as well have played the coquette in speech as writing. It is Rem Van Ariens who is at the bottom of it. May the devil take the fellow! I shall need some heavenly power to keep my hands off him. This is a grief beyond all griefs—I believed she loved me so entirely. Fool! a thousand times fool! Have I not found all women of a piece? Did not Molly Trefuses throw me over for a duke? and Sarah Talbot tell me my love was only calf-love and had to be weaned? and Eliza Capel regret that I was too young to guide a wife, and so marry a cabinet minister old enough for her grandfather? Women are all just so, not a cherry stone to choose between them—I will never wonder again at anything a woman does—Was ever a lover so betrayed? Oh Cornelia! your ink should have frozen in your pen, ere you wrote such words to me.”

Thus his passionate grief and anger tortured him until midnight. Then he had a high fever and a distracting headache, and, the physical torment being the most insistent and distressing, he gave way before it. With such agonizing tears as spring from despairing wounded love he threw himself upon his bed, and his craving, suffering heart at length found rest in sleep from the terrible egotism of its sorrow.

Never for one instant did he imagine this sorrow to be a mistaken and quite unnecessary one. Indeed it was almost impossible for him to conceive of a series of events, which though apparently accidental, had a fatality more pronounced than anything that could have been arranged. Not taking Rem Van Ariens seriously into his consideration, and not fearing his rival in any way, it was beyond all his suspicions that Rem should write to Cornelia in the same hour, and for the same purpose as himself. He had no knowledge of Rem’s intention to go to Boston, and could not therefore imagine Cornelia “grieving” at any journey but his own impending one to England. And that she should be forced by circumstances to answer both Rem and himself in the same hour, and in the very stress and hurry of her great love and anxiety should misdirect the letters, were likelihoods outside his consciousness.

It was far otherwise with Rem. The moment he opened the letter brought him by Cornelia’s messenger, in that very moment he knew that it was NOT his letter. He understood at once the position, and perceived that he held in his hand an instrument, which if affairs went as he desired, was likely to make trouble he could perchance turn to his own advantage. The fate that had favoured him so far would doubtless go further—if he let it alone. These thoughts sprang at once into his reflection, but were barely entertained before nobler ones displaced them. As a Christian gentleman he knew what he ought to do without cavil and without delay, and he rose to follow the benignant justice of his conscience. Into this obedience, however, there entered an hesitation of a second of time, and that infinitesimal period was