The Wild Huntress: Love in the Wilderness

“My sister!”

“Lilian.”

Chapter Eighty Three

Old Memories awakened

The rein dropped from her fingers – the rifle fell upon the neck of her horse, and she sat gazing at me in speechless surprise. At length, in a low murmur, and as if mechanically, she repeated the words:

“My sister Lilian?”

“Yes, Marian Holt – your sister.”

“My name! how can you have become acquainted with it? You know my sister?”

“Know her, and love her – I have given her my whole heart.”

“And she – has she returned your love?”

“Would that I could say surely yes! Alas! I am still in doubt.”

“Your words are strange. O sir, tell me who you are! I need not question what you have said. I perceive that you know my sister – and who I am. It is true: I am Marian Holt – and you? you are from Tennessee?”

“I have come direct from it.”

“From the Obion? perhaps from – ”

“From your father’s clearing on Mud Creek, Marian.”

“Oh! this is unexpected – what fortune to have met you, sir! You have seen my sister then?”

“I have.”

“And spoken with her? How long ago?”

“Scarcely a month.”

“So lately! And how looks she? She was well!”

“How looks she? – Beautiful, Marian, like yourself. She was well, too, when I last saw her.”

“Dear Lilian! – O sir! how glad I am to hear from her! Beautiful I know she is – very, very beautiful. Ah me! – they said I was so too, but my good looks have been lost in the wilderness. A life like that I have been leading soon takes the softness from a girl’s cheeks. But, Lilian! O stranger! tell me of her! I long to hear of her – to see her. It is but six months, and yet I think it six years, since I saw her. Oh! how I long to throw my arms around her! to twine her beautiful golden-hair around my fingers, to gaze into her blue innocent eyes!” My heart echoed the longings.

“Sweet little Lilian! Ah – little – perhaps not, sir? She will be grown by this? A woman like myself?”

“Almost a woman.”

“Tell me, sir – did she speak of me? Oh, tell me – what said she of her sister Marian?”

The question was put in a tone that betrayed anxiety. I did not leave her to the torture of suspense; but hastily repeated the affectionate expressions which Lilian had uttered in her behalf.

“Good kind Lil! I know she loves me as I love her – we had no other companions – none I may say for years, only father himself. And father – is he well?”

There was a certain reservation in the tone of this interrogatory, that contrasted strangely with that used when speaking of her sister. I well knew why.

“Yes,” I replied, “your father was also in good health when I saw him.”

There was a pause that promised embarrassment – a short interval of silence. A question occurred to me that ended it. “Is there no one else about whom you would desire to hear?”

I looked into her eyes as I put the question. The colour upon her cheeks went and came, like the changing hues of the chameleon. Her bosom rose and fell in short convulsive breathings; and, despite an evident effort to stifle it, an audible sigh escaped her. The signs were sufficient. I needed no further confirmation of my belief. Within that breast was a souvenir, that in interest far exceeded the memories of either sister or father. The crimson flush upon her cheek, the quick heaving of the chest, the half-hindered sigh, were evidences palpable and pronounced. Upon the heart of Marian Holt was the image of the handsome hunter – Frank Wingrove – graven there, deeply and never to be effaced.

“Why do you ask that question?” at length she inquired, in a voice of assumed calmness. “Know you anything of my history? You appear to know all. Has any one spoken of me?”

“Yes – often – one who thinks only of you.”

“And who, may I ask, takes this single interest in a poor outcast maiden?”

“Ask your own heart, Marian! or do you wish me to name him?”

“Name him!”

“Frank Wingrove.”

She did not start. She must have expected that name: since there was no other to be mentioned. She did not start, though a sensible change was observable in the expression of her countenance. A slight darkling upon her brow, accompanied by a pallor and compression of the lips, indicated pain.

“Frank Wingrove,” I repeated, seeing that she remained silent. “I know not why I should have challenged you to name him,” said she, still preserving the austere look. “Now that you have done so, I regret it. I had hoped never to hear his name again. In truth, I had well-nigh forgotten it.”

I did not believe in the sincerity of the assertion. There was a slight tincture of pretence in the tone that belied the words. It was the lips alone that were speaking, and not the heart. It was fortunate that Wingrove was not within earshot. The speech would have slain him.

“Ah, Marian!” I said, appealingly, “he has not forgotten yours.”

“No – I suppose he mentions it – with boasting!”

“Say rather with bewailing.”

“Bewailing? Indeed! And why? That he did not succeed in betraying me?”

“Far otherwise – he has been true to you!”

“It is false, sir. You know not, perhaps, that I was myself witness of his base treachery. I saw him – ”

“What you saw was a mere accidental circumstance; nor was it of his seeking. It was the fault of the Chicasaw, I can assure you.”

“Ha! ha! ha! An accidental circumstance!” rejoined she, with a contemptuous laugh; “truly a rare accident! It was guilt, sir. I saw him with his arms around her – with my own eyes I saw this. What farther proof needed I of his perfidy?”

“All that you saw, I admit, but – ”

“More than saw it: I heard of his faithlessness. Did not she herself declare it – in Swampville? elsewhere! – boasted of it even to my own sister! More still: another was witness to his vile conduct – had often seen him in her company. Ha! little dreamed he, while dallying in the woods with his red-skinned squaw, that the earth has ears and the trees have tongues. The deceiver did not think of that!”