Chapter 8 A BUSINESS LETTER.

From Astra's studio, Doctor Remy went to his office, and devoted an hour to the task of writing a letter; which seemed to make an unusual demand upon his skill, either of composition or penmanship. Three different sheets were defaced and destroyed, ere the work was accomplished to his mind. The epistle was addressed to Mrs. Lyte, enclosing what purported to be the amount of an old, outlawed debt to her deceased husband; of which the debtor, having recently met with a stroke of good fortune, was glad to relieve his conscience. In good time, after making a short détour, it arrived at its destination; and played an important part in events, by furnishing Mrs. Lyte with an opportune sum of ready money.

Five days afterward, as Major Bergan was about to sally forth for his customary morning visit to his beloved rice fields, a letter was put into his hands. It ran as follows:


"DEAR MAJOR BERGAN: I duly received your notice of foreclosure, and I thank you for the measure of forbearance that you have hitherto exercised toward me. As you are doubtless aware, I have no means of paying off the mortgage, except by the sale of the property which it covers. As I am about to leave Berganton, for a time, on account of my daughter's health, I hereby surrender my house and grounds into your hands, to be sold, or otherwise disposed of, as you may deem best for our mutual interests. If they sell for more than the amount of the mortgage (as I hope they will), I know I may safely trust to you, as a man of honor, and a good friend of my late husband, to hold the balance subject to my order. You will find the house in charge of my old and faithful servant, Cato; whom I also venture to commend to your kind care, until I shall be able to send for him. I cannot find it in my heart to sell him; besides, he is too old to be of much value, though still quite able to earn his bread, on your plantation.

"This is not a man's way of doing business, I am well aware; it is only a woman's way of shirking responsibility, in matters that she does not understand. I know that my interests are safer in your hands than in my own. As soon as I am comfortably settled anywhere, I will let you know my address. Till then, believe me,

"Very truly yours,
        "CATHERINE LYTE."


It will be seen that this epistle was a masterpiece of diplomacy, in its way. Though it proved Mrs. Lyte to be a most unbusiness-like woman, it none the less evinced her thorough knowledge of the one-sided and contradictory character of the man with whom she had to deal. Grasping and impracticable as Major Bergan would be sure to be, with a surly and obstinate debtor who met him squarely on his own ground, she believed that he would not fail to show himself scrupulously just, and even generous, to the woman who, without a word of reproach or remonstrance, quietly resigned herself and her affairs into his hands, to be dealt with according to his good pleasure.

In this conclusion, she was justified by the event. A more astonished and disgusted man than Major Bergan, after he had mastered the contents of her letter, it would be hard to find. For once, even his brandy bottle was empty of comfort. He could only partially relieve his mind, while his horse was being saddled, by pouring forth volley upon volley of curses; distributed, impartially, at first, among Mrs. Lyte, Doctor Remy, his nephew, his frightened servants, and himself. Later, his wrath began to concentrate itself on Doctor Remy. That personage had undoubtedly influenced him to the commission of the act which he now stigmatized, in his most emphatic manner, as unworthy a Bergan and a gentleman. In return, he threatened to break every bone in the doctor's body, and grimly consigned the fragments to a place of deposit always much in favor with men of his habits. Finally, he mounted his horse, and trotted rapidly toward Berganton.

His first visit was, of course, to Doctor Remy. With the most imperturbable good humor, that gentleman listened to the flow of his oaths and objurgations, until it had partially exhausted itself by its own fury. He then assured the Major that his surprise and regret at Mrs. Lyte's departure were fully equalled by his own. The thing had been managed so quietly and adroitly, that he had not suspected it, until his attention had been attracted by the deserted look of the house. At the same time, he must acknowledge that it was only a short time since he had advised Mrs. Lyte to try a change of air, both for herself and her daughter; and doubtless that had had its share in influencing her action. Besides, it was on the whole the best thing that could do to take Miss Astra out of the way, until the present cloud of gossip had blown over. Finally, he threw out a suggestion that the twain had possibly gone to join Mr. Arling.

Hereupon, Major Bergan's wrath broke out afresh. It was not in human nature—certainly not in that particular species of human nature represented by the Major—to hear with equanimity that the very measure which he had taken to prevent what he considered to be an unsuitable marriage, had possibly availed to hasten it forward. The walls of the doctor's office trembled with the oral thunderbolts launched at the offenders. In due time, however, these also subsided into the low growl of the exhausted tempest; dying away, at last, in muttered imprecations upon that curious turn of events—the grim humor of which the Major was now quite capable of appreciating—which had made him the trustee of Mrs. Lyte's affairs, and the guardian of her interests.

To the Major's credit be it spoken, that he was incapable of betraying the trust thus committed to him. Quitting Doctor Remy's office, he went in search of old Cato, put the premises in his charge during the absence of his mistress, promised him an occasional visit of inspection (and a sound thrashing if all was not found in complete order), made due provision for his maintenance, and then took himself grumblingly home, to drown the remnant of his chagrin in the Lethean glass that had already swallowed up so many of his better thoughts, impulses, and characteristics.

Of course, Mrs. Lyte's departure—or flight, as it was not infrequently termed—made the nine days' wonder of Berganton. Some few gentle, charitable souls there were, no doubt, who, judging their neighbor by themselves, saw no harm either in the fact or the manner of her going. She was ill; so was her daughter; they had neither time nor heart for leavetakings. But there were others, wise in the crooked ways of the human heart through much practice therein, who scrupled not to find motives and objects for the course of the pale-faced widow and her gifted daughter, with which it is not necessary to stain this page. There was the more room for this, inasmuch as Major Bergan, partly out of consideration for Mrs. Lyte, and partly out of shame on his own account, had taken care that the existence of the mortgage should not transpire. Yet Mrs. Lyte had depended upon the ultimate disclosure of this fact, to furnish that explanation of her departure which she had shunned to give herself, and to turn the current of popular sympathy in her favor. In yielding to Astra's morbid desire not only to leave the scene of her untoward love behind, but to do it in such swift and silent wise that neither curiosity, nor sympathy, nor malevolence, could immediately follow them, to inflict their various torture upon her sore heart, Mrs. Lyte had looked confidently forward to this forthcoming justification of her step. Her old friends, she thought, would be sure to understand the feeling that led her to flee from the sight of the sale of her lifelong home (it might be under the auctioneer's hammer), and to shut off all means of communication between herself and the painful transaction, until time had given her strength to bear it.

Next to Major Bergan, the person who felt most aggrieved at the fact and manner of her departure was Carice. Astra, to be sure, had not failed to send her friend a brief note of farewell; but it was couched in such vague terms, owing to the confusion and distress of mind in which it had been written, as to afford little satisfaction to the reader. She could only gather from it that, in one way or another, Astra's happiness was very seriously compromised; so much so as to make a change desirable, though it were only a change of pain. And, in Carice's present circumstances, this was either too much or too little. The rumors which had filled Berganton had found their way to Oakstead also; and, for the first time in their lives, parents and daughter were divided in sentiment, and alien in sympathy. Mr. and Mrs. Bergan—terrified that their idolized child should have given her heart to a man persistently held up to view as a thin mask of outward morality over an inward rottenness of intemperance, indebtedness, and unscrupulous trifling with affection—could think of no better way of correcting the mischief than by continually repeating in her unwilling ears the various dark rumors in circulation, together with such facts and theories as tended to confirm them. Carice, on her part, turned from them all with the instinctive disgust of a pure mind, and the generous faith and confidence of a true affection. And she was right. Trust, as long as it is in anywise possible, is the heart's deepest wisdom, as well as its surest instinct.

Nevertheless, it was hard to find her parents arrayed against her, with all the rest of the world. Duty, decorum, forbade her to set up her own opinion in opposition to theirs; often she had but to listen in silence to statements and inferences which she could neither admit nor disprove. She would have been glad, therefore, had Astra's note furnished one scrap of evidence in support of her own convictions; on the contrary, its testimony went quite the other way. She could only neutralize its effect upon herself by supposing that Astra had given her affections to Bergan unsought, and was now suffering from a disappointment none the less bitter that she had brought it upon herself. But Carice was too delicate and generous to breathe this suspicion aloud; at the same time she knew that it would have no weight with minds so deeply prejudiced as those of her parents.

Carice's worst trial was, however, her growing wonder why nothing was heard from Bergan. His last words to her had been a promise to write immediately, both to her father and herself,—to the former by way of frankly avowing his love, and asking for permission to address his daughter; to the latter, as a necessary sequence to that brief interview by the singing river, the thought of which was Carice's one subject of delightful contemplation. But no letter came, not so much as a word of regret or excuse for necessary delay. As time dragged its slow length along, a touching look of wistfulness, mingled with a sorrowful patience, came into the face that had lately been so serenely happy,—a look over which Mr. and Mrs. Bergan scarcely knew whether most to lament or to rejoice, it was grievous to behold it there; and yet, if Bergan would only keep silent, she must eventually give him up!

Alas for Carice! there was no doubt whatever that Bergan would keep silent—or seem to do so. Her parents' minds would have been set at rest on that point, if they could invisibly have followed Doctor Remy into the Berganton Post Office some weeks previous, and listened to his conversation with the pale, slight, weak-looking young man in charge. One month before, he had so obstinately and successfully fought death at the bedside of this young man's newly wedded wife, as to call forth an unusual amount of gratitude. To this fact he now alluded.

"Well, Jekyll," said he, "I have come to make trial of that eternal gratitude which you swore to me, not long ago."

"I am glad of it, sir," responded Jekyll, warmly. "What can I do for you?"

"The question is rather, what will you do for me?" returned the doctor, with marked emphasis.

"Anything, anything, that is not wrong," replied Jekyll.

"Right and wrong are relative terms," replied Doctor Remy, quietly. "If you had understood the nature of the drugs which I gave your wife the other night, you would have said that I was trying to poison her;—yet, you see, I saved her life. It is the motive which determines the character of the act."

"Y-e-s, sir," rejoined Jekyll, considerably bewildered; but, nevertheless, feeling quite certain that so learned a man as Doctor Remy must understand these matters a great deal better than he did.

"And so," continued the doctor, suavely, "what I am about to ask you to do, is not really wrong, though it may seem so at first sight. It is only a quiet method of averting a great deal of trouble and scandal from a very worthy family. Should you recognize this handwriting, if you were to see it again?"

Jekyll looked at the paper held towards him, and answered,—"Yes, certainly; it is—"

"Never mind whose it is," interrupted the doctor; "it is just as well not to know anything about that. Well, Jekyll, what I want you to do, is simply to keep a sharp lookout for any letters, in that handwriting, which may come to Godfrey Bergan, or his daughter, or his wife, and hand them over to me."

Jekyll opened his eyes wide with surprise and terror. "Good gracious!" he exclaimed, "it's a penitentiary business!"

"Not at all," replied Doctor Remy, calmly. "In the first place, no one will know anything about it but you and me. In the second, you are not doing this thing for your own advantage, but just to help me to save certain excellent people from sore sorrow and trouble."

Jekyll did not answer, but he still looked dismayed and unconvinced.

"If it will ease your scruples any," pursued the doctor, after a pause, "I don't mind telling you, in confidence, that Mr. Godfrey Bergan very much desires the suppression of these letters, though he does not want to appear in the matter himself. And you must admit that he has a right to control the correspondence of his own household.

"But why does he want his own letters stopped?" asked Jekyll.

"For the best of reasons,—he does not want to receive them. He prefers to be able to say that he hears nothing, and knows nothing. Therefore, you will readily understand that nothing is to be said, or even hinted, to him. He puts the matter in my hands, and you are responsible to me only."

It is unnecessary to trace the conversation to the end. Its results are already patent to the reader. Doctor Remy was specious and plausible; Jekyll was weak and grateful; the yielding of the pliant nature of the former to the stronger one of the latter, could only be a question of time.