Bessie's Fortune. Mary Jane Holmes

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ she, too, would join him in a little while.

      "It is not that!" Lucy cried, "though it breaks my heart to think of you gone forever. How can I live without you? What shall I do when my expiatory work is finished?"

      "Expiatory work?" Robin repeated, questioningly. "What do you mean? What have you to expiate?—you, the noblest, most unselfish sister in the world!"

      "Much, much. Oh, Robbie, I cannot let you die with this upon my mind, even if the confession turn your love for me into hate—and you do love me, I have made your life a little less sad than it might have been but for me."

      "Yes, sister, you have made my life so full of happiness that, darkened as it is, I would like to cling to it longer, though I know heaven is so much better."

      "Thank you, Robbie—thank you for that" Lucy said; then, lifting up her head, and looking straight into her brother's face, she continued: "You say you have a faint recollection of the grass, and the flowers, and the trees in the park. Have you also any remembrance, however slight, how I looked when we were little children playing together at home?"

      "I don't know for sure," Robin replied, while for an instant a deep flush stained his pale cheeks: "I don't know for sure. Sometimes out of those dim shadows of the past which I have struggled so hard to retain, there comes a vision of a little girl—or, rather, there is a picture which comes before my mind more distinct than the grass, and the trees, and the flowers, though I always try to put it away; but it repeats itself over and over again, and I see it in my dreams so vividly, and especially of late, when life is slipping from me."

      "What is the picture?" Lucy said, and her face was whiter than the one above her.

      "It is this," Robin replied. "I seem to see myself looking up, with outstretched arms, toward a little girl who is standing above me, looking down at me with a face which cannot—cannot be the one I shall welcome to heaven and know as my sister's; for this in the picture has a cruel expression on it, and there is hatred in the eyes, which are so large and black, and stare so fixedly at me. Then there is a crash, and darkness, and a horrible pain, and loud cries, and the eyes fade away in the blackness, and I know no more till you are sobbing over me and begging me to say that I can see you. I remember that, I am sure, or else it has been told me so often that it seems as if I did; but the other, the face above me, is all a fancy and a delusion of the brain. You never looked at me that way—never could."

      Here he paused, and the girl beside him withdrew herself from him, and clasping her hands tightly together, knelt abjectly at his feet as she said:

      "Oh, Robbie, Robbie! my darling, if you could know with what shame, and anguish, and remorse I am kneeling before you, you would pity and perhaps forgive me when I have told you what I must tell you now. But don't touch me—don't put your hands upon me, for that would quite unnerve me," she continued, as she saw the thin hands groping to find her. "Sit quite still and listen, and then, if you do not loathe me with a loathing unutterable, call me sister once more, and that will be enough."

      The old cathedral clock was striking twelve when that interview ended, and when it struck the hour of midnight again Robin Grey lay dead in the room which looked toward the sea, and the soft south wind, sweet with the perfume of roses and orange blossoms, kissed his white face and stirred the thick curls of golden hair clustering about his brow. As is often the case with consumptives, his death had been sudden at the last, so sudden that Lucy scarcely realized that he was dying, until she held him dead upon her bosom. But so long as life lasted he kept repeating her name in accents of unutterable tenderness and love.

      "Lucy, Lucy, my precious sister, God bless you for all you have been to me, and comfort you when I am gone, darling, darling Lucy, I love you so much; Lucy, Lucy, Lucy where are you? You must not leave me. Give me your hand till I reach the river-bank where the angels are waiting for me, I can see them and the beautiful city over the dark river, though I can't see you; but I shall in heaven, and I am almost there. Good-by, good-by, Lucy."

      It almost seemed as if, he were calling to her from the other world, for death came and froze her name upon his lips which never moved again, and Lucy's work was done. Other hands than hers cared for the dead body, which was embalmed, and then sent to its northern home.

      There were crowds of people at the church where the funeral was held and where Robin had been baptized. The son of Captain Grey was worthy of respect, and the citizens turned out en masse, so that there was scarcely standing room in the aisles for all who came to see the last of Robin. Very touchingly the rector spoke of the deceased, whose short life had been so pure and holy, and then he eulogized the sister who had devoted herself so unselfishly to the helpless brother, and who, he said, could have nothing to regret, nothing to wish undone, so absolute and entire had been her sacrifice. Hitherto Lucy had sat as rigid as a stone, but as she listened to her own praises she moved uneasily in her seat, and once put up her hand deprecatingly as if imploring him to stop. When at last the services were over, and the curious ones had taken their last look at the dead, and the undertaker came forward to close the coffin-lid, her mind, which had been strained to its utmost, gave way, and not realizing what she did or meant to do, she arose suddenly, and gliding swiftly past her father, stepped to the side of the coffin, and throwing back her heavy crape vail; stooped and kissed the eyelids of her brother, saying as she did so:

      "Dear Robbie, can you see me now, and do you know what I am going to do?"

      There was a glitter in her eyes which told that she was half-crazed, and her father arose to lead her to her seat beside him; but she waved him back authoritatively, and in a clear, distinct voice, which rang like a bell through the church, said to the astonished people:

      "Wait a little. There is something I must tell you. I have tried to put it away, but I cannot. My brain is on fire, and will never be cool again until I confess by Robbie's coffin; then you may judge me as you please. It will make no difference, for I shall have done my duty and ceased to live a lie, for my life has been one long series of hypocrisies and deceit. Our clergyman has described me as a saint, worthy of a martyr's crown, and some of you believe him, and look upon the care I gave to Robbie as something unheard-of and wonderful. And I have let you think so, and felt myself the veriest hypocrite that ever breathed. Don't you know that what I did was done in expiation of a crime, a horrid, cruel deed, for I put out Robbie's eyes. I made him blind.

      "I knew you would shudder and turn from me in loathing," she continued, in a louder, clearer tone, as she felt the thrill of surprise which ran through the assembly, and grew more and more excited, "But it is the truth, I tell you. I put out those beautiful eyes of which I was so envious because the people praised them so much. I could not bear it, and the demon of jealousy had full possession of me, young as I was, and sometimes, when I saw him preferred to me, I wished him dead, dead, just as he is now. Oh, Robbie, my heart is breaking with agony and shame, but I must go on. I must tell how I hated you and the pretty baby ways which made you so attractive, and when I climbed up in the chair after the lumps of sugar and saw the cup of Cayenne pepper, and you standing below me with wide-open eyes and outstretched hands, asking me to give, the devil look possession of me and whispered that now was my chance to ruin those eyes looking up so eagerly at me. I had heard that red pepper would make one blind, and—and—oh, horror, how can I tell the rest?"

      Lucy's voice was like a wailing cry of agony, as, covering her white face with her hands, she went on:

      "I held the cup toward Robbie, and said: 'Is it this you want?' and when in his ignorance he answered: 'Yes, div me some,' I dropped it into his hands, saying to myself, 'it is not my fault if he gets it in his eyes.'

      "You know the rest, how from that moment he never looked on me or any one again; but you do not, cannot know the anguish and remorse which filled my soul, when I realized СКАЧАТЬ