The Two Destinies Page 10

medical attendant the presence of serious internal injury. In thedoctor's opinion, he could never hope to resume the active habits ofhis life. He would be an invalid and a crippled man for the rest of hisdays.

  Under these melancholy circumstances, the bailiff's employer didall that could be strictly expected of him, He hired an assistant toundertake the supervision of the farm work, and he permitted Dermody tooccupy his cottage for the next three months. This concession gave thepoor man time to recover such relics of strength as were still left tohim, and to consult his friends in Glasgow on the doubtful question ofhis life to come.

  The prospect was a serious one. Dermody was quite unfit for anysedentary employment; and the little money that he had saved was notenough to support his daughter and himself. The Scotch friends werewilling and kind; but they had domestic claims on them, and they had nomoney to spare.

  In this emergency, the passenger in the wrecked vessel (whose lifeDermody had saved) came forward with a proposal which took father anddaughter alike by surprise. He made Mary an offer of marriage; on theexpress understanding (if she accepted him) that her home was to be herfather's home also to the end of his life.

  The person who thus associated himself with the Dermodys in the timeof their trouble was a Dutch gentleman, named Ernest Van Brandt. Hepossessed a share in a fishing establishment on the shores of theZuyder Zee; and he was on his way to establish a correspondence with thefisheries in the North of Scotland when the vessel was wrecked. Mary hadproduced a strong impression on him when they first met. He had lingeredin the neighborhood, in the hope of gaining her favorable regard, withtime to help him. Personally he was a handsome man, in the prime oflife; and he was possessed of a sufficient income to marry on. In makinghis proposal, he produced references to persons of high social positionin Holland, who could answer for him, so far as the questions ofcharacter and position were concerned.

  Mary was long in considering which course it would be best for herhelpless father, and best for herself, to adopt.

  The hope of a marriage with me had been a hope abandoned by her yearssince. No woman looks forward willingly to a life of cheerless celibacy.In thinking of her future, Mary naturally thought of herself in thecharacter of a wife. Could she fairly expect in the time to come toreceive any more attractive proposal than the proposal now addressedto her? Mr. Van Brandt had every personal advantage that a woman coulddesire; he was devotedly in love with her; and he felt a gratefulaffection for her father as the man to whom he owed his life. With noother hope in her heart--with no other prospect in view--what could shedo better than marry Mr. Van Brandt?

  Influenced by these considerations, she decided on speaking the fatalword. She said, "Yes."

  At the same time, she spoke plainly to Mr. Van Brandt, unreservedlyacknowledging that she had contemplated another future than the futurenow set before her. She did not conceal that there had once been an oldlove in her heart, and that a new love was more than she could command.Esteem, gratitude, and regard she could honestly offer; and, with time,love might come. For the rest, she had long since disassociated herselffrom the past, and had definitely given up all the hopes and wishes onceconnected with it. Repose for her father, and tranquil happiness forherself, were the only favors that she asked of fortune now. These shemight find under the roof of an honorable man who loved and respectedher. She could promise, on her side, to make him a good and faithfulwife, if she could promise no more. It rested with Mr. Van Brandt to saywhether he really believed that he would be consulting his own happinessin marrying her on these terms.

  Mr. Van Brandt accepted the terms without a moment's hesitation.

  They would have been married immediately but for an alarming changefor the worse in the condition of Dermody's health. Symptoms showedthemselves, which the doctor confessed that he had not anticipated whenhe had given his opinion on the case. He warned Mary that the end mightbe near. A physician was summoned from Edinburgh, at Mr. Van Brandt'sexpense. He confirmed the opinion entertained by the country doctor. Forsome days longer the good bailiff lingered. On the last morning, heput his daughter's hand in Van Brandt's hand. "Make her happy, sir," hesaid, in his simple way, "and you will be even with me for saving yourlife." The same day he died quietly in his daughter's arms.

  Mary's future was now entirely in her lover's hands. The relatives inGlasgow had daughters of their own to provide for. The relatives inLondon resented Dermody's neglect of them. Van Brandt waited, delicatelyand considerately, until the first violence of the girl's grief had wornitself out, and then he pleaded irresistibly for a husband's claim toconsole her.

  The time at which they were married in Scotland was also the time atwhich I was on my way home from India. Mary had then reached the age oftwenty years.

  The story of our ten years' separation is now told; the narrative leavesus at the outset of our new lives.

  I am with my mother, beginning my career as a country gentleman on theestate in Perthshire which I have inherited from Mr. Germaine. Mary iswith her husband, enjoying her new privileges, learning her new duties,as a wife. She, too, is living in Scotland--living, by a strangefatality, not very far distant from my country-house. I have nosuspicion that she is so near to me: the name of Mrs. Van Brandt (evenif I had heard it) appeals to no familiar association in my mind. Stillthe kindred spirits are parted. Still there is no idea on her side, andno idea on mine, that we shall ever meet again.

  CHAPTER VII. THE WOMAN ON THE BRIDGE.

  MY mother looked in at the library door, and disturbed me over my books.

  "I have been hanging a little picture in my room," she said. "Comeupstairs, my dear, and give me your opinion of it."

  I rose and followed her. She pointed to a miniature portrait, hangingabove the mantelpiece.

  "Do you know whose likeness that is?" she asked, half sadly, halfplayfully. "George! Do you really not recognize yourself at thirteenyears old?"

  How should I recognize myself? Worn by sickness and sorrow; browned bythe sun on my long homeward voyage; my hair already growing thin overmy forehead; my eyes already habituated to their one sad and weary look;what had I in common with the fair, plump, curly-headed, bright-eyedboy who confronted me in the miniature? The mere sight of the portraitproduced the most extraordinary effect on my mind. It struck me withan overwhelming melancholy; it filled me with a despair of myself toodreadful to be endured. Making the best excuse I could to my mother, Ileft the room. In another minute I was out of the house.

  I crossed the park, and left my own possessions behind me. Followinga by-road, I came to our well-known river; so beautiful in itself, sofamous among trout-fishers throughout Scotland. It was not then thefishing season. No human being was in sight as I took my seat on thebank. The old stone bridge which spanned the stream was within a hundredyards of me; the setting sun still tinged the swift-flowing water underthe arches with its red and dying light.

  Still the boy's face in the miniature pursued me. Still the portraitseemed to reproach me in a merciless language of its own: "Look at whatyou were once; think of what you are now!"

  I hid my face in the soft, fragrant grass. I thought of the wasted yearsof my life between thirteen and twenty-three.

  How was it to end? If I lived to the ordinary life of man, what prospecthad I before me?

  Love? Marriage? I burst out laughing as the idea crossed my mind. Sincethe innocently happy days of my boyhood I had known no more of love thanthe insect that now crept over my hand as it lay on the grass. My money,to be sure, would buy me a wife; but would my money make her dear tome? dear as Mary had once been, in the golden time when my portrait wasfirst painted?

  Mary! Was she still living? Was she married? Should I know her again ifI saw her? Absurd! I had not seen her since she was ten years old: shewas now a woman, as I was a man. Would she know _me_ if we met? Theportrait, still pursuing me, answered the question: "Look at what youwere once; think of what you are now!"

  I rose and walked backward and forward, and tried to turn t
he current ofmy thoughts in some new direction.

  It was not to be done. After a banishment of years, Mary had got backagain into my mind. I sat down once more on the river bank. The sun wassinking fast. Black shadows hovered under the arches of the old stonebridge. The red light had faded from the swift-flowing water, and hadleft it overspread with one monotonous hue of steely gray. Thefirst stars looked down peacefully from the cloudless sky. The firstshiverings of the night breeze were audible among the trees, and visiblehere and there in the shallow places of the stream. And still, thedarker it grew, the more persistently my portrait led me back to thepast, the more vividly the long-lost image of the child Mary showeditself to me in my thoughts.

  Was this the prelude of her coming back to me in dreams; in herperfected womanhood, in the young prime of her life?

  It might be so.

  I was no longer unworthy of her, as I had once