England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Love stories; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
Searching for the sketch-book (which I had not used for years), I found
it in an old desk of mine that had remained unopened since my departure
for India. In the course of my investigation, I opened a drawer in the
desk, and discovered a relic of the old times--my poor little Mary's
first work in embroidery, the green flag!
The sight of the forgotten keepsake took my mind back to the bailiff's
cottage, and reminded me of Dame Dermody, and her confident prediction
about Mary and me.
I smiled as I recalled the old woman's assertion that no human power
could "hinder the union of the kindred spirits of the children in the
time to come." What had become of the prophesied dreams in which we were
to communicate with each other through the term of our separation? Years
had passed; and, sleeping or waking, I had seen nothing of Mary. Years
had passed; and the first vision of a woman that had come to me had
been my dream a few nights since of the stranger whom I had saved from
drowning. I thought of these chances and changes in my life, but not
contemptuously or bitterly. The new love that was now stealing its way
into my heart had softened and humanized me. I said to myself, "Ah, poor
little Mary!" and I kissed the green flag, in grateful memory of the
days that were gone forever.
We drove to the waterfall.
It was a beautiful day; the lonely sylvan scene was at its brightest
and best. A wooden summer-house, commanding a prospect of the falling
stream, had been built for the accommodation of pleasure parties by the
proprietor of the place. My mother suggested that I should try to make
a sketch of the view from this point. I did my best to please her, but I
was not satisfied with the result; and I abandoned my drawing before it
was half finished. Leaving my sketch-book and pencil on the table of the
summer-house, I proposed to my mother to cross a little wooden bridge
which spanned the stream, below the fall, and to see how the landscape
looked from a new point of view.
The prospect of the waterfall, as seen from the opposite bank, presented
even greater difficulties, to an amateur artist like me, than the
prospect which we had just left. We returned to the summer-house.
I was the first to approach the open door. I stopped, checked in my
advance by an unexpected discovery. The summer-house was no longer empty
as we had left it. A lady was seated at the table with my pencil in her
hand, writing in my sketch-book!
After waiting a moment, I advanced a few steps nearer to the door, and
stopped again in breathless amazement. The stranger in the summer-house
was now plainly revealed to me as the woman who had attempted to destroy
herself from the bridge!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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