The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katharine Green (best books to read all time TXT) 📕

did not bring me my Mary, nor the next, nor the next; and beyond hearing that Mr. Leavenworth had returned from his trip I received neither word nor token. Two more days dragged by, when, just as twilight set in, she came. It had been a week since I had seen her, but it might have been a year from the change I observed in her countenance and expression. I could scarcely greet her with any show of pleasure, she was so unlike her former self.

“You are disappointed, are you not?” said she, looking at me. “You expected revelations, whispered hopes, and all manner of sweet confidences; and you see, instead, a cold, bitter woman, who for the first time in your presence feels inclined to be reserved and uncommunicative.”

“That is because you have had more to trouble than encourage you in your love,” I returned, though not without a certain shrinking, caused more by her manner than words.

She did not reply to this, but rose and paced the floor, coldly at first, but afterwards with a certain degree of excitement that proved to be the prelude to a change in her manner; for, suddenly pausing, she turned to me and said: “Mr. Clavering has left R——, Mrs. Belden.”

“Left!”

“Yes, my uncle commanded me to dismiss him, and I obeyed.”

The work dropped from my hands, in my heartfelt disappointment. “Ah! then he knows of your engagement to Mr. Clavering?”

“Yes; he had not been in the house five minutes before Eleanore told him.”

“Then she knew?”

“Yes,” with a half sigh. “She could hardly help it. I was foolish enough to give her the cue in my first moment of joy and weakness. I did not think of the consequences; but I might have known. She is so conscientious.”

“I do not call it conscientiousness to tell another’s secrets,” I returned.

“That is because you are not Eleanore.”

Not having a reply for this, I said, “And so your uncle did not regard your engagement with favor?”

“Favor! Did I not tell you he would never allow me to marry an Englishman? He said he would sooner see me buried.”

“And you yielded? Made no struggle? Let the hard, cruel man have his way?”

She was walking off to look again at that picture which had attracted her attention the time before, but at this word gave me one little sidelong look that was inexpressibly suggestive.

“I obeyed him when he commanded, if that is what you mean.”

“And dismissed Mr. Clavering after having given him your word of honor to be his wife?”

“Why not, when I found I could not keep my word.”

“Then you have decided not to marry him?”

She did not reply at once, but lifted her face mechanically to the picture.

“My uncle would tell you that I had decided to be governed wholly by his wishes!” she responded at last with what I felt was self-scornful bitterness.

Greatly disappointed, I burst into tears. “Oh, Mary!” I cried, “Oh, Mary!” and instantly blushed, startled that I had called her by her first name.

But she did not appear to notice.

“Have you any complaint to make?” she asked. “Is it not my manifest duty to be governed by my uncle’s wishes? Has he not brought me up from childhood? lavished every luxury upon me? made me all I am, even to the love of riches which he has instilled into my soul with every gift he has thrown into my lap, every word he has dropped into my ear, since I was old enough to know what riches meant? Is it for me now to turn my back upon fostering care so wise, beneficent, and free, just because a man whom I have known some two weeks chances to offer me in exchange what he pleases to call his love?”

“But,” I feebly essayed, convinced perhaps by the tone of sarcasm in which this was uttered that she was not far from my way of thinking after all, “if in two weeks you have learned to love this man more than everything else, even the riches which make your uncle’s favor a thing of such moment—”

“Well,” said she, “what then?”

“Why, then I would say, secure your happiness with the man of your choice, if you have to marry him in secret, trusting to your influence over your uncle to win the forgiveness he never can persistently deny.”

You should have seen the arch expression which stole across her face at that. “Would it not be better,” she asked, creeping to my arms, and laying her head on my shoulder, “would it not be better for me to make sure of that uncle’s favor first, before undertaking the hazardous experiment of running away with a too ardent lover?”

Struck by her manner, I lifted her face and looked at it. It was one amused smile.

“Oh, my darling,” said I, “you have not, then dismissed Mr. Clavering?”

“I have sent him away,” she whispered demurely.

“But not without hope?”

She burst into a ringing laugh.

“Oh, you dear old Mamma Hubbard; what a matchmaker you are, to be sure! You appear as much interested as if you were the lover yourself.”

“But tell me,” I urged.

In a moment her serious mood returned. “He will wait for me,” said she.

The next day I submitted to her the plan I had formed for her clandestine intercourse with Mr. Clavering. It was for them both to assume names, she taking mine, as one less liable to provoke conjecture than a strange name, and he that of LeRoy Robbins. The plan pleased her, and with the slight modification of a secret sign being used on the envelope, to distinguish her letters from mine, was at once adopted.

And so it was I took the fatal step that has involved me in all this trouble. With the gift of my name to this young girl to use as she would and sign what she would, I seemed to part with what was left me of judgment and discretion. Henceforth, I was only her scheming, planning, devoted slave; now copying the letters which she brought me, and enclosing them to the false name we had agreed upon, and now busying myself in devising ways to forward to her those which I received from him, without risk of discovery. Hannah was the medium we employed, as Mary felt it would not be wise for her to come too often to my house. To this girl’s charge, then, I gave such notes as I could not forward in any other way, secure in the reticence of her nature, as well as in her inability to read, that these letters addressed to Mrs. Amy Belden would arrive at their proper destination without mishap. And I believe they always did. At all