Proving A Heart - A Love Story

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Title:     Proving A Heart - A Love Story
Author: Eugenia Dunlap Potts [More Titles by Potts]

"Hold fast! don't be frightened! I can save you if you will only be strong!" were the exclamations that burst hurriedly from young Dr. Gardner's lips as, with horror-struck face he sprang from his window-seat and bounded downstairs.

And well might he hasten, for she who awaited his succor, hung perilously between heaven and earth, expecting every moment to be dashed to the ground.

For some minutes previous to his excited words, Weldon Gardner's gaze had been riveted in awful fascination upon an immense balloon that was fast descending toward the high roofs that clustered on all sides about his comfortable rooms on ---- St., New York.

Something was wrong. He could readily detect this in the unsteady wavering of the gaily-striped air-ship. And so, too, thought the crowd that he now saw had gathered in the street below.

Evidently the aeronaut had lost control of his craft. Lower still it tottered, and now were visible several arms outstretched in the vain appeal for aid.

Not a sound escaped the spell-bound multitude in the streets, for in a moment more the fate of the doomed adventurers must be decided. Suddenly two human forms dropped from the loosened basket and struck with a fearful thud against the elevated railway, then rebounded to the street below a mass of mangled flesh. Death was instantaneous. With one impulse the throng surged about the bodies; but Dr. Gardner's eyes were still fixed upon the balloon, for as if relieved by the rapid lightening of its burden it gave a spirited sweep upward, then passed over his own roof.

Hastening to his back windows, which overlooked a paved court, he threw himself into a chair, and strained his gaze in search of the wrecked pleasure-craft, to which one other figure clung with the might of desperation.

One large tree, spared by the pruning axe of the city architect, shaded the court; and into the wide-spreading boughs of this tree, did the powerless balloon now descend, its ropes becoming hopelessly entangled. Clinging fast to whatever offered support, a young girl with dark, terror-stricken eyes, met his look of horror, as with the reassuring words already quoted, Weldon Gardner rushed down to the rescue.

Even as he gained the spot, shouting to the men in service to bring a ladder, a number of persons had penetrated to the court, and were now collected around the tree, uttering excited comments upon the disaster.

With all possible speed the young physician reached the sufferer, but unconsciousness had already closed her eyes to all danger. Bearing the light form from the entangling meshes, the doctor ascended to his consulting-room, and deposited his burden upon a couch. Summoning his housekeeper, he dismissed the gaping followers, and proceeded to examine the death-like form he had preserved from mutilation.

The patient seemed to be about eighteen years old, and bore unmistakable evidences of the lady in her attire.

Mercifully forebearing to restore her senses till after his skillfull examination, the doctor could discover no broken limbs, and nothing now remained but to enable her to speak for herself as to her condition. After a persistent use of restoratives, the anxious attendants were rewarded by seeing the color flutter back into the pallid cheeks, and the long eyelashes quiver with returning life.

Her first words were: "Lucien! Maggie! we are lost!" Then a strong shudder convulsed her slight frame, and with a startled cry she attempted to spring up.

"Be careful," gently remonstrated the doctor, laying a detaining hand upon her. "Tell me--are you hurt anywhere?"

"I don't know--I think not--oh! who are you? Where am I? Where are the others? Were they killed? Oh! it was too horrible!" and the agitated speaker burst into a passion of tears so violent as to alarm her watchers.

Leaving her to the housekeeper, Dr. Gardner quickly prepared and administered a soothing potion. Then, enjoining absolute quiet, he drew the blinds, and proceeded downstairs to learn of the ill-fated companions of his patient. The crowd still lingered about the spot, although the bodies had been removed to await a claimant. Nothing was known except that the balloon had ascended that morning from one of the city squares, and that, as frequently happened, a party of young people had gone up to get a bird's eye view of the metropolis. Who they were did not yet appear.

Several hours passed, and still the rescued girl slept the dreamless sleep induced by the nervous shock and the narcotic draught of the doctor. Patiently the housekeeper sat and watched.

As twilight fell, she gave a sigh and opened her large eyes in surprise upon the strange face beside her. Taking advantage of the opportune moment, Mrs. Buford removed the pongee walking suit from the drowsy girl, and then gently enfolding her in a soft white wrapper, the kind matron assisted her to the bed which had been prepared, the girl submitting with a bewildered look of questioning wonder, and finally sinking back gratefully into slumber.

And here Weldon Gardner came before retiring for the night.

Softly touching the delicate wrist in its dainty frill, he noted the somewhat fitful pulsations of the disturbed life-centers. Bending above the tell-tale heart-beats, his practiced ear assured him that ere long the deep repose of his charge would effectually restore her to health.

How like chiseled marble she looked, lying there in her absolute helplessness beneath his stranger gaze! How pure the white brow, with its clustering rings of glossy hair! How exquisitely fine the white hand to which the dimples of babyhood yet clung! How classic the contour of her face, into which already the warm hue of health was creeping! A heavy sigh escaped him as he noted each perfection of outline. Who was this lovely stranger? And what could she be to him?

"Why was I ever such a dupe?" he said in his heart. "Fettered--fettered for life!"

But suddenly realizing that except in his professional capacity he had no right thus to intrude upon her slumbers, the young physician turned from the enchanting picture.

"How is she now, sir?" respectfully inquired the housekeeper.

"Fairly well," he replied cheerfully; "I do not think she is hurt, except a few bruises, which we must look after. She was thrown pretty hard against that tree. To-morrow she will be able to give an account of herself. We can do nothing toward finding her friends before that time. Call, if she should become restless," and the young man retired to his own apartment, there to ponder deeply, as he had never before pondered in his life.

Some days later the following letter was posted by Weldon Gardner:

NEW YORK, September 20, 1879.

"My Dear Aunt:--

"Your kind letter reminds me that never, in all these years of boyhood grown ripe, has duty come to me in as repulsive a form as now, I tell you, shocked as you may feel when you read the words, that I would rather put a bullet through my head than meet Evelyn Howard at this time! Why couldn't she stay in England? And what cursed folly induced my parents to thus bind me for life to one I had never seen? True, I submitted. But you know with what an appeal my dying mother besought my compliance, and what could I do? I cared for no one else. How was I to foresee that the tie would ever be so intensely galling?

"I know all that you would say about honor, manhood, and all the category of virtues. I know them all. Nor am I willing to act the scoundrel just yet. But I must have time; I can _not_ marry that girl now. Nor will I consent to meet her yet. Let her think I am out of town, sick, busy, _dead_; anything, till I can screw my courage to the sticking point.

"About the balloon tragedy--yes, you heard correctly of my figuring in the matter. The girl is Miss Lina Dent, of Brooklyn, and I am happy to report that she is entirely recovered, though deeply afflicted at the fearful death of her friends. It seems that they had, in a spirit of fun, gone up in the balloon, feeling confident that their adventure was, to say the least, of somewhat doubtful propriety. They did not think of danger. The cowardly desertion of the aeronaut, as soon as he could leap to a roof in safety, precipitated their fall.

"The young victims, Lucien and Maggie Taylor, were too much frightened to hold to their frail support. Their tragic fate has plunged an excellent household into mourning. Bitterly my new acquaintance lamented her folly in consenting to the excursion; but how can a man in his senses add to her condemnation when she looks through such eyes, and speaks with such lips? Not I, I assure you.

"Miss Dent is visiting a relative in Brooklyn, and in my character of physician, I have been kindly received. The strangest part of it all is the odd way that girl looked at me when she knew enough to look rationally at anybody; and her obstinate persistence in leaving my house before she was fit to go. And it was all I could do to induce her to see me again. But her cousin was quite cordial, and now I may claim to have established an easy footing at the house. But about Evelyn Howard--don't, my dear aunt, if you have a spark of mercy, require me to see her now."

* * * * *

A month passed by, and October, in glorious tints of autumnal beauty, shed its light over the city. In a handsome drawing-room on Brooklyn Heights sat Weldon Gardner and Lina Dent. The young girl wore a soft white dress, and her figure was replete with roseate health and beauty.

The young physician was pleading strongly and earnestly, gazing into the eloquent eyes before him as if his very life hung upon their favor.

"But I know so little of you, Dr. Gardner," was her remonstrance in answer to his ardent suit, "true you have earned my life-long gratitude--"

"Don't mention that, if you have any regard for me," he interrupted, in a sort of disdain.

"Yes," she urged, "I must mention it. To you I owe my life, and perhaps, my reason. Of course I know you in all points of family, position, and professional success; but your own true self--how can I know that you will secure my happiness? Is there nothing you can tell me of yourself which will reassure me?"

And the bright, honest look of her eyes robbed her plain words all possible sting.

"First, tell me that you love me," he argued, "let me know that it would be sweet to you to place your happiness in my keeping. At least you can do this. You know if you love me."

She listened with averted look.

"And if I confess that I love you," she said at length, in a low voice; "if I do this, would it not be mockery to learn, when too late, that I had made a mistake?"

"But, in heaven's name, Lina, what can you mean? Why do you doubt me? What is there to tell? I could have no secrets--"

Then there rushed to his memory with a force that sent the blood to his brow and almost took his breath, the conviction that he _had_ a secret from her--that he _was_ deceiving her--that it was unmanly to seek her love with a lie on his lips. For a brief season his engagement had been forgotten, or ignored. He had hugged to his breast with unreasoning apathy the theory that the present was enough to consider--that the future must care for itself--that once his promised wife, Lina Dent should be his if all the world conspired against it. But now came the hated thought that Evelyn Howard stood between him and the precious one who had been his day-star since the night when he had nursed her back to life.

Starting up, he strode back and forth, not noting the pale cheeks and startled eyes of the girl who watched him in ill-repressed anxiety.

At length, sitting down beside her, he seized her soft fingers with a grasp of which he was hardly aware. Then instantly relaxing the rigor of his clasp, he pleaded:

"Let me hold this pure little hand while I confess to you, my only love, that your clear eyes have read my soul--that I have deceived you--that I love you beyond all else this world contains; but that the most cruel fate man ever before suffered, keeps me from you, unless, indeed, your love will help me to remove the barrier."

And while the young girl listened, with drooping head, he told her of his hated engagement--of the painful circumstances that had betrayed him into compliance.

"But I never dreamed of this sort of Nemesis! I could not have been in my senses to thus barter my freedom forever."

Slowly withdrawing her hand, the girl said, still in the same low tones:

"And you do not love your betrothed?"

"Love her?" he echoed. "I tell you, Lina, I have never even seen her. Her people have been abroad for an age. She was in New York a few weeks ago and, I understand, took offense at my continued absence from her side, and went back to England. This is what she left for me;" and plunging his hand into his breast pocket he selected from his note-case a fragrant little billet-doux, formally desiring Dr. Gardner to explain his strange conduct at his leisure--that the next opportunity granted him of seeing Evelyn Howard must be of his own seeking.

There was a pause after the reading of this aggrieved, dignified little message.

"And can you, as a gentleman of honor, reconcile your neglect of the writer?" asked Lina Dent, in a voice in which a cadence of scorn involuntarily sounded.

"Honor! Can't you see that honor was what kept me from her? Such honor as a man feels when he knows that he is poised between a Scylla and a Charybdis of desperate fatality?"

"There can be but one answer to all this, Dr. Gardner," the girl replied with proud dignity. "It would ill become me to sit in judgment on you after what I have received at your hands; but you will acknowledge that it was cruelly inconsiderate to seek my love while a barrier such as this existed. How do I know that you will not love your betrothed after you have seen her?"

"Love her--love any other than you, my beautiful, peerless one? Do not torture me with such a supposition. I care nothing for Evelyn Howard; I do not know her; I do not care to know her; nor is she in the least dependent upon me for happiness. She has vast wealth, and can command whatever fate she chooses."

"But wealth cannot buy happiness," she sadly replied, "and our course is clear. I can see you no more till you have met your betrothed and received your dismissal--or,"--and her clear cheek paled again--"made up your mind to fulfill your promise to her. Farewell! I thank you for your unwise devotion to me, but I can see you no more."

"Oh, Lina, do not doom me to this total separation. Why it seems an eternity. Where and when can I see you again? Why didn't I go to that girl when she was here? Fool, coward that I was! And now I cannot leave New York. Grant me some respite, my love--I cannot live without you!"

But much as she sympathized with him she was firm; and when Weldon Gardner left the house, with despair tugging at his heart, the only ray of sunshine that pierced the gloom was the conviction that she did love him--that should anything occur to separate them forever, her heart would plead strongly for him, and her love would strive with his to overcome the barrier.

* * * * *

Months went by, and still Evelyn Howard eluded Weldon Gardner's pursuit. Bitterly was he punished for his culpable neglect of her. In vain he wrote letters urging her to come to New York. She was traveling with friends and declined to change her course. He followed her to London, to Paris. In vain! She was ever just before him on his journey: always missing, never meeting him. Then he wrote to Lina Dent, beseeching her to relent, since he had done all in his power to carry out her wishes. She did not reply. Then in sullen despair he gave up the pursuit. He carefully avoided going out except to see patients, declined all invitations, and took solitary refuge in the stern exactions of duty.

As the year drew to a close he noticed in the list of arrivals from Europe, Miss Evelyn Howard and her party; and among the personals he saw that the beautiful Miss Howard would appear at Governor B's reception on the next evening. He had received cards to this party, and now, with the fierce desire to end his torture reawakened, he prepared to accept the invitation. As he entered the brilliant rooms his eye fell upon the form and face of Lina Dent, attired in an exquisite costume, and looking far more radiant than in his wildest dreams he had ever pictured her.

Feasting upon her loveliness, with eyes hungry in their wistfulness, he was about to approach her when she suddenly looked toward him and their eyes met. He caught the quick flash of feeling; he knew that he was still beloved! But even as he drank in the delicious confirmation of his hopes, she passed him without recognition, and he knew that she would not break her vow--that she would not meet him till he had fulfilled her conditions. Too miserable to seek Miss Howard in the throng, the young physician pleaded an urgent call to a patient, and left his host almost before he had fairly entered upon the festivities.

One evening, soon after the last fearful disappointment, Dr. Gardner received a note asking him to come to a certain number on Fifth Avenue, and there he should meet Evelyn Howard. She inferred that he had had ample time to learn if he really desired to form her acquaintance, and she was ready now to see him.

Tearing the paper to atoms in sudden irritation and setting his teeth, the young physician was soon at the appointed place, an elegant brown-stone mansion, quite familiar to his eyes in his drives about the city.

He was not left long in suspense. There was a sound of rapid steps descending the stairs, with a frou-frou of silken skirts, and in a moment Lina Dent stood before him, her face aglow with a proud light he had never seen there, and her hands extended in glad welcome.

"You, Lina! You here? You have relented? This is too much happiness!"

Catching both soft white hands in his, he bent his lips to them, full of the rapture he could not speak. He forgot to wonder why she was there. He forgot everything but the love in her eyes and the joyous ring of her voice.

Ere they could be seated the door again opened and admitted an elderly lady, who approached smiling.

"My dear aunt!" exclaimed the young lover. "You, too? This _is_ a surprise! What does it all mean? How did you get here, and when?"

The ladies stood smiling at each other and gazing upon him with a significance that indeed clamored for explanation.

"Weldon, is it possible you do not guess?" asked his aunt.

"What? Why, what do you mean? I am all bewildered!" he exclaimed, looking from one to the other till a faint glimmer of the truth began to appear through the mists.

"Stupid boy!" again emphasized the lady, "whom did you come here to see?"

Quickly glancing at the beautiful, radiant, still-smiling face of the young girl, and then at the impressive features of the elder lady, Weldon Gardner, with bated breath and a dazed expression in his startled eyes, exclaimed:

"You--are--Evelyn Howard--you?"

"Exactly so. Doctor Gardner--Evelina Dent Howard--at your service!"

As she spoke, she placed her hand in his, and asked, in the liquid tones whose cadences he so well remembered, "Have you been punished enough for your unknightly scorn of the girl you condemned without trial?"

"Oh, forgive!" he pleaded, drawing her to a seat beside him. "I see it all now. What a dolt you must have thought me! How could you ever have tolerated me?"

"There is the conspirator," archly said Evelyn, pointing to Mrs. Duke. "She it was who enabled me to deceive you. I wrote to her immediately upon leaving your house for my cousin's, in Brooklyn, and she at once devised the scheme that I have found so hard to carry out. Meanwhile, she never lost sight of you."

It was long before the necessary explanations were exhausted, and when the new day dawned no happier man proudly entered upon his duties than did Weldon Gardner.

* * * * *

It is upon a soft September afternoon that we last see Dr. Gardner and his lovely wife. Within a snug little arbor beside the lake in Central Park the two sit side by side, watching the idly-floating pleasure crafts, and noting the lazy ripples of the green wavelets. Their hearts grow tender with a mighty love that finds no language in which to clothe itself.

Every blessing of life is theirs; every cadence that affection knows makes harmony in their words. Gayly-dressed children pass by, some with toy balloons, bounding into air. Evelyn shuddered at even this tiny reminder of her reckless adventure, and clinging to her husband's arm, blesses him and the day that confided her to his keeping. Accident had tested his noble nature as the ordinary course of events never could have done; and now was fulfilled the last wish of his parents, that in Evelyn Howard should Weldon Gardner find the glory of heaven's last, best gift to man.

[The end]
Eugenia Dunlap Potts's short story: Proving A Heart - A Love Story

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