CHAPTER XXIV
THE RECTOR’S DIARY
The sweet-faced Miss Isabel did not try his patience long.
She had been deeply interested in the young and handsome stranger, wondering who he was, and whence he came, as well as why he should seek their quiet little chapel, and then the old sexton.
She had heard his last words to the old man and knew that he was desirous of speaking with her. She at once arose, and, as soon as she came forth from the cottage, he immediately approached her.
“Pardon,” he said, courteously, lifting his hat, “but may I crave a little conversation with you?”
“Certainly,” she answered, with a sweet graciousness that made him think of his mother.
He then stated something of his object in coming there, and also the startling revelation of the sexton, as well as what he had said regarding the rector’s diary, and begged her, if it was in her power, to let him know the truth of the matter.
Her face grew sad and full of pity as she listened to him, and realized something of the wrong that had been suffered for so many years, and when he had finished she said simply:
“Yes, I can give you comfort. Come with me.”
How his heart bounded at the words “I can give you comfort;” and, heaving a breath that was almost a sob, a cry of thankfulness went up to God from his heart for the light that was beginning to shine upon his darkened life.
Miss Isabel Grafton, for that was the lady’s name, led the way toward a small villa, built in the Gothic style, nearby.
It was a charming little place, covered with vines and climbing roses, and surrounded by noble trees with here and there a patch of gay flowers adding brightness to the scene.
She invited him to enter, and ushered him into a cool and shady parlor, when she excused herself for a few moments. She was not gone long, and when she returned she carried two or three large books in her hand.
“These books,” she explained, laying them carefully upon the table as if they were a precious treasure, “comprise my father’s diary, and, I think, never during his life did he omit the record of a single day. I have taken a sad pleasure,” she continued, with a starting tear, “in reading them since his death, and I also think that there is considerable here regarding the events of which you speak. Now, if you will please give me the date I will see if I can find it for you.”
He told her and then sat in painful suspense while she turned those pages penned by a hand long since palsied in death, and which might contain so much of hope for him.
“Yes,” she said at last, “here is one entry—the first, I think, since it corresponds with the date you gave me;” and she passed him the book to let him read for himself.
His emotion was so great that at first the words seemed blurred and indistinct, and it was a minute or two before his vision became clear enough to read.
Then he read this:
“August 11th, 18—. A strange thing occurred today. Thomas Wight, the sexton of St. John’s chapel, came to me in evident distress and confessed a conspiracy in which he was concerned, or rather a wrong into which he had been tempted by the offer of gold, and which lay exceeding heavy on his heart. A young man had hired him to leave the chapel open after dark that evening, that he might come to be married secretly to a young and beautiful girl, and he told him, moreover, that he would bring his own clergyman with him to perform the ceremony. He paid the sexton a golden eagle to do him the service, which the poor fellow, conscience-smitten like Judas of old, came and delivered up to me for the poor. I resolved at once to investigate the affair, for it appeared to me as if a wrong of some kind was being perpetrated, wherein a young, trusting, and perhaps motherless girl, like my own fair Isabel, was being deceived. The result proved even as I thought—a romance begun, a wrong beheaded.
“An hour before the time that Thomas Wight told me was set apart for the strange couple to come to the chapel, I repaired thither and concealed myself behind the drapery of a curtain in the robing room. It was nearly dark, but not so dark but that I could distinguish objects quite distinctly, and I had not been there long before a young man, of perhaps thirty years, quietly entered, and immediately proceeded to disguise himself with a white wig and a full, flowing white beard. I knew then, beyond a doubt, that a great wrong was contemplated, for the hair and beard were an exact counterpart of my own. He then approached my private closet, took down the robe and surplice, and was about to put them on, when I stepped forth from my hiding place and addressed him thus:
“‘Friend, what art thou about to do with these emblems of a sacred office? Those are holy vestures which none but a priest unto God has a right to wear.’
“The robe dropped from his nerveless hand upon the floor, and he turned a white, startled face to me.
“‘Who are you?’ he at length demanded, with an effort to recover himself.
“‘I am Bishop Grafton and rector of St. John’s parish. Who are you?’ I asked mildly, in return.
“‘It does not matter who I am,’ he muttered, angrily, and standing before me with an exceedingly crest-fallen air; and I proceeded with solemn gravity:
“‘Friend, I learned this afternoon that a great wrong was to be committed here this evening, and I came here to stop it, if possible.’
“I spoke the words at a venture—and not so, either, for the man’s manner had convinced me of the fact already—and my words took immediate effect, for, with a muttered imprecation, he tore the wig and beard from his head and face and threw them also upon the floor beside the robe and surplice.
“‘Friend,’ I then demanded, sternly, ‘are you a minister of Jesus Christ?’
“‘No,’ he muttered, with a vile oath.
“‘Then you were about to personate a bishop of the church and commit sacrilege. I will relieve you from both the mockery and the sin. I will myself perform this marriage ceremony.’
“‘But—’ he began, in an excited manner.
“‘You will please give me the names of the parties about to be united, and the correct ones,’ I interrupted, peremptorily.
“He gave them, and, lighting a taper, I inserted them in the blanks of the certificate with which I had provided myself before leaving home.
“‘Now you can go,’ I added and pointed to the rear door, which led into the churchyard.
“He hesitated and began to stammer something about someone being very angry at the turn affairs were taking.
“‘Enough!’ I cried, sternly. ‘Do not dare to interfere with me; you can quietly retire and leave things to take their course; or, since I now recognize you as one of the strangers visiting Rye for the summer, I will cause you to be arrested on the morrow for sacrilege, and having tampered with things belonging to the house of God. Hark!’ I added, as we heard steps entering the chapel; ‘they have come; choose quickly and go; or, if you fear to do that, acknowledge, in the presence of yonder couple, the fraud you were about to commit. I will not have so foul a wrong perpetrated; if a young and trusting maiden believes she is about to become a lawful wife, a wife she shall be; I will not allow her to be deceived.’
“A moment longer he hesitated, as if undecided which course to pursue, then, with a terrible imprecation upon me and the whole proceeding, he turned away and glided forth into the darkness, and I saw him no more.
“It was but the work of an instant for me to don the robe and surplice which he had dropped in his fright, and I was at the altar in time to receive the strange couple, one of whom I was now convinced was a designing villain, the other his victim.
“The maiden was apparently very young, and my heart was pained for her; her voice was sweet and childish as she made the responses, and I felt in my soul that she must be motherless, or she would not be there in any such way as that.
“The propriety of my adopting the course I did might be questioned by some, and the thought arises why I did not instead denounce the villain and save the child. I had reasoned all that within myself, and was convinced that if she was so infatuated with her lover that he had won her consent to a secret marriage, it would not be difficult for him to win her again to his will, and, even in the face of my revelation, to do her the foul wrong he had planned. I judged that the greatest kindness I could do her would be to make her really a wife.
“In less than ten minutes the vows which made them one were pronounced, and they were as truly man and wife as any who ever took upon themselves the vows of matrimony; and, putting the certificate of the transaction in the young bride’s hand, I saw them go forth into their new life, feeling that whatever happened, I had done what I could.
“I did not believe that with that certificate in her possession, whereon my name was written in my boldest hand, to prove the transaction, that any very great harm could come to that child-wife. I returned to the robing room, removed my vestures, picked up the wig and beard which still lay there, and brought them home with me as trophies of a strange adventure. They are locked within the third drawer of the old Grafton bureau. God bless and spare that innocent maiden; my heart yearneth over her.”
Thus ended the bishop’s first entry regarding that strange adventure, and a long, deep sigh, as if some heavy burden had rolled from his heart, burst from Marion Vance’s son as he finished reading it and laid down the book.
“Thank God!” he said, devoutly.
“Amen!” murmured the sweet-faced Miss Isabel, who had sat silently watching him as he read, and who seemed to comprehend and sympathize with all that that burst of thanks meant.
“There is something more, I believe, a little farther on,” she said, after a moment of silence, and reaching for the book. “Here it is,” she added, after turning several pages. “I have read it a great many times and hoped that that young girl might have been happy, and yet I feared for her—there is so much that is sad in the world,” she concluded, with a sigh.
The excited youth again seized the book eagerly and read:
“September 10th, 18—. My heart has been unaccountably heavy today for that young maiden whom I so strangely wedded about a month ago. Perhaps the event was recalled by my meeting the villain who was to perform the mock ceremony. He avoided me with a blush of shame, turning short in his tracks as he saw me approaching. It is well that he can feel even shame for his sin. But something impressed me that that young wife might sometimes need even stronger evidence than the certificate I gave her—it might be lost, destroyed, or stolen, and then there would be nothing to prove her position if I should die; and so, I resolved to make a record here of their names, and the date of their marriage:
“Married—In St. John’s Chapel, Winchelsea, August 11th, 18—, by the Reverend Joshua Grafton, bishop, and rector of St. John’s parish, George Sumner, of Rye, to Miss Marion Vance, also of Rye. I take my oath that this is a true statement.
“September 10th, 18—. Joshua Grafton, Rector.”
That was all; but was it not enough?
The book dropped from the youth’s nerveless hand, and his involuntary cry smote heavily the heart of the gentlewoman sitting so silently in the gathering twilight near him.
“Oh, Mother—Mother!”
It was as though he could not bear it, and she was not there to share it with him—this tardy justice, this blessed revelation. His heart was filled almost to bursting with grief that she should have suffered all those long years, bearing so patiently her burden of shame, when she might even now be living, honored, and respected.
She was only thirty-four when she died—just the time when life should have been at its prime.
She was beautiful, and so constituted that she could have enjoyed to their fullest extent all the good things that belonged to her high position in life; and it seemed too cruel, when they might all have been hers—when they were hers by right—that she should have been so crushed, and her life so corroded and early destroyed by this foul wrong.
But Marion Vance had learned submission and humility from her life of trial—she had learned to trust where the way was so dark that she could not see, and she had told her son on her death-bed that notwithstanding she could not fathom the wisdom of the lesson of sorrow that she had had to learn, yet she did not doubt that it would all result for good in the end.
“You may perhaps be a nobler man,” she had said, with her hand resting fondly on his chestnut curls, “for having been reared in obscurity, instead of an heir to great possessions; you will, at all events, realize that a noble character is more to be desired than a mere noble-sounding name, and if you should ever rise to eminence by your own efforts, you will not forget the teachings of your mother, and they will help to keep you in the path of rectitude and honor.”
He remembered those last words now, and though he was always comforted when he thought of them, yet he could not keep down the wish that she might have lived, and he has been permitted to see her face light up with hope and joy that there was no stain resting upon her or him.
But doubtless, she knew it all in Heaven now and was rejoicing on his account.
He was no longer a nameless outcast from society; he could now hold his head aloft with the proudest in the land—he had no cause for shame, save the knowledge that his father had been one of the vilest villains who walked the face of the earth.
“Where was he now?” he wondered, a hot flush of anger mounting his brow, as it always did when he thought of him.
Was he living or dead?
Dead, he hoped, but that was a thing he had yet to find out.
He wondered how the Marquis of Wycliffe would receive the knowledge that he had gained today.
He could now seek him and claim his inheritance if he chose—there was no reason why he should not do so, except that his heart shrank with indignation and bitterness from the stern man who, with a face of flint, had sent his mother, a tender, suffering woman, so cruelly into the world to wrestle with life’s stern realities, with neither sympathy nor love to smooth its rough way.
He knew that he should claim his inheritance sometime; it belonged to him as Marion’s legitimate son, and according to the conditions of the old marquis’ will.
He would go and rule Wycliffe some day, and show the world how Marion Vance, the despised and scorned, had reared her son. Oh, if she could but have lived to be proud of him and enjoy the good that was coming to him! This was ever the burden of his thought, but it could not be, and he could only strive to remember and follow her pure teachings and win for himself the respect that had been denied her.
But first, he had a work to do. He could not go to Wycliffe yet, much as he desired to re-establish his mother’s reputation. He must first find the man who had sought her ruin, to “pass away a summer holiday and to have a jolly good time.” If he were dead he would find his grave and be satisfied. If he was living, he would search until he found him, brand him with his traitorous designs, and prove to him that in his wickedness he had overreached himself.
Then, and not until then, could he present himself before the Marquis of Wycliffe, and demand to be acknowledged as his heir.
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