Chapter LXXXVII: Another Blow

That night Fletcher was worse. High fever came on again, and the anguish of his wounds, both in soul and body, kept him restless.

Old Sam came to him, rather late in the morning, with a letter or two and some papers which he had brought from the post-office. In the parcel was a New York journal, directed in a strange hand, with more than usual care.

Fletcher tore off the wrapper, indolently wondering what person could be sufficiently interested in him to send this one isolated number of a journal he could not remember having seen before. A couple of pen dashes drew his attention to one article. It was a poem, headed “To One Who Will Understand Me,” and signed Russell Waldon.

The very name of this man sent the hot blood to Fletcher’s face. He began to read the poem, his eyes darting from line to line in sharp haste at first; then he re-perused it more steadily. It was Bertha’s story, with that of her dead mother, written in such burning verse as genius alone can give to human sorrow. A flimsy veil of mysticism was thrown over it all, craftily calculated to stimulate curiosity, and the writer clothed himself in generous romance, like a Bayard, whom fate had entangled in a web of deception from which nothing but the nobility of genius and most sensitive honor could have redeemed him.

“I will follow him to the ends of the earth for this! I will have his base life! That man and I cannot live in the same universe together!” cried Fletcher, when the poem had burned itself into his brain. “To let such men prowl unchecked through the world is a wrong to humanity!”

The young man forgot his wounds and everything else but the cruel outrage of that last insult to the woman he loved.

He sprang up from his seat with the energy of a strong man, and trod the floor to and fro in such feverish wrath that Lydia had been standing with the door half open since his first bitter outbreak, and he knew nothing of her presence.

“His life! Oh, that will not be enough! I could tear the craven limb from limb! Bertha—my pure, beautiful Bertha—what has she done that her proud heart should be so tortured? She shall never know of this. It would wound her to death, and she is so happy now! I was so happy only an hour since! But she shall be spared!”

As he spoke, Fletcher wrenched the paper in pieces, and flung the fragments through the open window; then he turned, and saw Lydia standing in the door, as if she had just opened it.

“Mr. Fletcher, Miss Bertha wants to know if you are ready to see company? Mr. Forbes has come from New York, and your own brother too.”

“Wait a few minutes, Lydia. Yes—yes! tell Edward—tell Forbes to come up; and Lydia, my good girl, I have just thrown a torn paper out of the window. Go down at once, pick up the pieces, and burn them in the kitchen fire. We must not litter Aunt Celia’s grass plot, you know. I think you had better do that first of anything; then send the gentlemen here.”

“I’ll attend to it,” said Lydia, disappearing.

She found the paper, put it in her pocket, and went in search of Mr. Forbes and young Lane, who were walking along the banks of the inlet with Alice, whose happy voice was heard now and then swelling into mellow laughter.

“We will take Bertha and her queer little maid home with us,” she said; “then Egbert will follow; and some one will have tremendous wedding expenses to bear. All the city shall ring with the marriage; for if Alice Forbes and Bertha Fletcher (that is to be) cannot put down that pink and white doll, with ten Waldons to back her, never own us as clever women again. Here comes Lydia. Well, kitsey-witsey, is my brother ready to see us?”

“Mr. Fletcher wants the gentlemen to come up; but I don’t think he mentioned any one else,” answered Lydia.

“Very well. Then I will give Aunt Celia directions about the dinner.”

“It is a great bother for her, poor old soul! But the doctor will be here to-day, and unless he forbids it, we can all break up camp and go back to the plantation.”

By this time Forbes and his wife had reached the house, when she gave up his arm, and went to her consultation in the kitchen.

Mr. Forbes and young Lane mounted the stairs, and found Fletcher pacing his room like a caged lion.

“Forbes—Edward, I am glad you have come! Never were friends so wanted! My hand burns, does it? No wonder. Something has just set every drop of blood in my veins on fire!”

“I can guess what it is,” said Forbes, gravely. “Some one was good enough to send me a copy before I left New York.”

“Then you can understand what I wish. We have both an account with that man.”

“I have already paid him with contempt,” said Forbes.

“But that was different. I, too, was unwilling to take his life for what appeared to me only the language of a bravo in his cups; but now, when I have searched that black heart to its depths, it would be either superhuman mercy, or meanness too vile for manhood, were he to escape. If you would not have me shoot him down like a dog, stand by me in this, my brother.”

Forbes reached forth his hand, taking that of Fletcher with a firm clasp.

“Not a word to the women, Edward.”

“I think you can trust me,” said the young man. “But you are not strong enough yet. Your hand quivers like a reed.”

“I shall grow strong; till then you must wait for me.”

“We came to stay till you were quite well. Edward has graduated with honors. Alice proposes to take Miss Canfield home with her as a lure to get you out of Virginia. I think she is afraid to leave you in the neighborhood of that man, who is coming down here soon.”

“Is he? When?”

“Before you will have strength enough to challenge him, I fear.”

“I think the very sight of him would make a giant of me,” said Fletcher, with a stern smile. “What could have tempted him to run this risk? Does he expect me to shoot in the air a second time?”

“I think he was rather driven to it,” said Forbes. “His engagement with the young lady had been so public, he had triumphed in it so openly, that society would only believe that she had rejected him at the last hour. This idea cast a certain amount of ridicule on his marriage with a person totally unknown in the dilettante circles where he wished her to shine. His vanity, no doubt, led him into this infamous act, as it urged him on to that speech at Noel’s dinner table.”

“And for that I gave him his base life!” cried Fletcher, grinding his teeth.

“He had a cool reception among his old friends,” said Lane, “for the papers had been busy with this duel, in which he was made to appear the craven he really is, and besides, the bride was savagely criticised. It is always a remarkably severe test of any man’s popularity when he attempts to introduce a strange wife in a set to which his own individual genius has been the principal recommendation. Bertha was bright, beautiful, gifted, already a favorite in those circles where Waldon introduced his bride. What had become of that splendid young creature? Had she been put aside for that delicate thing of pink and white? Or had she, after discovering Waldon’s faults, chosen to cast him off? These were questions which met the literary autocrat at every turn. He saw that his influence was in danger; that the appendage of a pretty, self-sufficient, and utterly unintellectual wife would be a sufficient drag upon him, where her wealth was of no account whatever, without the odium of this broken engagement. In order to defend himself and still retain his social pedestal, he wrote the poem which some one who hates him forwarded to you and me.”

“At any rate he has made his infamous venture, and it will be my fault if he does not pay the penalty,” said Fletcher. “But here comes the doctor and Alice.”

“Who has besieged him already about taking you home, I hear. Well, it would be pleasanter in the roomy old house, though I think you very fortunate as it is.”

“Well,” said the doctor, in answer to Mrs. Forbes, who had intercepted him on the stairs, “I am not sure that we can keep him here with any comfort after this week. The young couple are coming home to Willow Bend directly, and there is to be a grand barbecue on the island here, in celebration of the wedding. This island has been the resort of picnics, barbecues, and impromptu camp-meetings so long, that we have almost forgotten it is your brother’s property, Mrs. Forbes.”

“It might have been quite as delicate if the family up yonder had remembered it,” said the lady, frowning a little.

“I thought of that,” rejoined the doctor; “but here is my patient. After I have seen him, we shall be able to decide on something.”