CHAPTER I. THE FARM-HOUSE AT SILVERTON.
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UNCLE EPHRAIM BARLOW was an old-fashioned
man, clinging to the old-time customs of his
fathers, and looking with but little toleration upon
what he termed the “new-fangled notions” of the present
generation. Born and reared amid the rocks and hills of
the Bay State, his nature partook largely of the nature of
his surroundings, and he grew into manhood with many
a rough point adhering to his character, which, nevertheless,
taken as a whole, was, like the wild New England
scenery, beautiful and grand. None knew Uncle Ephraim
Barlow but to respect him, and at the church in which
he was a deacon, few would have been missed more than
the tall, muscular man, with the long white hair, who,
Sunday after Sunday, walked slowly up the middle aisle
to his accustomed seat before the altar, and who regularly
passed the contribution box, bowing involuntarily
in token of approbation when a neighbor's gift was larger
than its wont, and gravely dropping in his own ten cents—
never more, never less, always ten cents—his weekly
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offering, which he knew amounted in a year to just five
dollars and twenty cents. And still Uncle Ephraim was
not stingy, as the Silverton poor could testify, for many
a load of wood and bag of meal found entrance to the
doors where cold and hunger would have otherwise been,
while to his minister he was literally a holder up of the
weary hands, and a comforter in the time of trouble.
His helpmeet, Aunt Hannah, like that virtuous woman
mentioned in the Bible, was one “who seeketh wool and
flax, and worketh willingly with her hands, who riseth
while yet it is night, and giveth meat to her household,”
while Miss Betsy Barlow, the deacon's maiden sister, was
a character in her way, and bore no resemblance to those
frivolous females to whom the Apostle Paul had reference
when he condemned the plaiting of hair and the wearing
of gold and jewels. Quaint, queer and simple-hearted,
she had but little idea of any world this side of heaven,
except the one bounded by the “huckleberry” hills and
the crystal waters of Fairy Pond, which from the back
door of the farm-house were plainly seen, both in the
summer sunshine and when the intervening fields were
covered with the winter snow.
The home of such a trio was, like themselves, ancient
and unpretentious, nearly one hundred years having
elapsed since the solid foundation was laid to a portion
of the building. Unquestionably it was the oldest house
in Silverton, for on the heavy oaken door of what was
called the back room was still to be seen the mark of a
bullet, left there by some marauders who, during the
Revolution, had encamped in that neighborhood. George
Washington, it was said, had spent a night beneath its
roof, the deacon's mother pouring for him her Bohea tea
and breaking her home-made bread. Since that time
several attempts had been made to modernize the house.
Lath and plaster had been put upon the rafters and paper
upon the walls, wooden latches had given place to iron,
while in the parlor, where Washington had slept, there
was the extravagance of a porcelain knob, such, as Uncle
Ephraim said, was only fit for gentry who could afford to
be grand. For himself he was content to live as his father
did; but young folks, he supposed, must in some
things have their way, and so when his pretty niece, who
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had lived with him from childhood to the day of her
marriage, came back to him a widow, bringing her two
fatherless children and a host of new ideas, he good-humoredly
suffered her to tear down some of his household
idols and replace them with her own. And thus it
was that the farm-house gradually changed its appearance,
for young womanhood which has had one glimpse
of the outer world will not settle down quietly amid fashions
a century old. Lucy Lennox, when she returned to
the farm-house, was not quite the same as when she went
away. Indeed, Aunt Betsy in her guileless heart feared
that she had actually fallen from grace, imputing the fall
wholly to Lucy's predilection for a certain little book on
whose back was written “Common Prayer,” and at which
Aunt Betsy scarcely dared to look, lest she should be
guilty of the enormities practiced by the Romanists
themselves. Clearer headed than his sister, the deacon
read the black-bound book, finding therein much that
was good, but wondering “why, when folks promised to
renounce the pomps and vanities, they did not do so, instead
of acting more stuck up than ever.” Inconsistency
was the underlying strata of the whole Episcopal
Church, he said, and as Lucy had declared her preference
for that church, he too, in a measure, charged her propensity
for repairs to the same source with Aunt Betsy;
but, as he could see no sin in what she did, he suffered
her in most things to have her way. But when she contemplated
an attack upon the huge chimney occupying
the centre of the building, he interefered; for there was
nothing he liked better than the bright fire on the hearth
when the evenings grew chilly and long, and the autumn
rain was falling upon the roof. The chimney should
stand, he said; and as no amount of coaxing could prevail
on him to revoke his decision, the chimney stood,
and with it the three fire-places, where, in the fall and
spring, were burned the twisted knots too bulky for the
kitchen stove. This was fourteen years ago, and in that
lapse of time Lucy Lennox had gradually fallen in with
the family ways of living, and ceased to talk of her cottage
in western New York, where her husband had died
and where were born her daughters, one of whom she
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was expecting home on the warm July day when our
story opens.
Katy Lennox had been for a year an inmate of Canandaigua
Seminary, whither she was sent at the expense of
a distant relative to whom her father had been guardian,
and who, during her infancy, had had a home with Uncle
Ephraim, Mrs. Lennox having brought him with her
when she returned to Silverton. Dr. Morris Grant he
was now, and he had just come home from a three years'
sojourn in Paris, and was living in his own handsome
dwelling across the fields toward Silverton village, and
half a mile or more from Uncle Ephraim's farm-house.
He had written from Paris, offering to send his cousins,
Helen and Kate, to any school their mother might select,
and as Canandaigua was her choice, they had both gone
thither the year before, but Helen, the eldest, had fallen
sick within the first three months, and returned to Silverton,
satisfied that the New England schools were good
enough for her. This was Helen; but Katy was different.
Katy was more susceptible of polish and refinement—
so the mother thought; and as she arranged and rearranged
the little parlor, lingering longest by the piano,
Dr. Morris's gift, she drew bright pictures of her favorite
child, wondering how the farm-house and its inmates
would seem to her after all she must have seen during
her weeks of travel since the close of the summer term.
And then she wondered why cousin Morris was so annoyed
when told that Katy had accepted an invitation to
accompany Mrs. Woodhull and her party on a trip to
Montreal and Lake George, taking Boston on her homeward
route. Katy's movements were nothing to him, unless—
and the little ambitious mother struck at random
a few notes of the soft-toned piano as she thought how
possible it was that the interest always manifested by
staid, quiet Morris Grant for her light-hearted Kate was
more than a brotherly interest, such as he would naturally
feel for the daughter of one who had been to him a
second father. But Katy was so much a child when he
went away to Paris that it could not be. She would
sooner think of Helen, who was more like him.
“It's Helen, if anybody,” she said aloud, just as a voice
near the window called out, “Please, Cousin Lucy, relieve
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me of these flowers. I brought them over in honor of
Katy's return.
Blushing guiltily, Mrs. Lennox advanced to meet a tall,
dark-looking man, with a grave, pleasant face, which,
when he smiled, was strangely attractive, from the sudden
lighting up of the hazel eyes and the glitter of the white,
even teeth disclosed so fully to view.
“Oh, thank you, Morris! Katy will like them, I am
sure,” Mrs. Lennox said, taking from his hand a bouquet of
the choice flowers which grew only in the hothouse at Linwood.
“Come in for a moment, please.”
“No, thank you,” the doctor replied. “There is a case
of rheumatism just over the hill, and I must not be idle if I
would retain the practice given to me. Not that I make
anything but good will as yet, for only the Silverton poor
dare trust their lives in my inexperienced hands. But I
can afford to wait,” and with another flash of the hazel
eyes Morris walked away a pace or two, then, as if struck
with some sudden thought, turned back, and fanning his
heated face with his leghorn hat, said, hesitatingly, “By
the way, Uncle Ephraim's last payment on the old mill
falls due to-morrow. Tell him, if he says anything in
your presence, not to mind unless it is perfectly convenient.
He must be somewhat straitened just now, as
Katy's trip cannot have cost him a small sum.”
The clear, penetrating eyes were looking full at Mrs.
Lennox, who for a moment felt slightly piqued that Morris
Grant should take so much oversight of her uncle's
affairs. It was natural, too, that he should, she knew,
for there was a strong liking between the old man and
the young, the latter of whom, having lived nine years in
the family, took a kindly interest in everything pertaining
to it.
“Uncle Ephraim did not pay the bills,” Mrs. Lennox
faltered at last, feeling intuitively how Morris's delicate
sense of propriety would shrink from her next communication.
“Mrs. Woodhull wrote that the expense should
be nothing to me, and as she is fully able and makes so
much of Katy, I did not think it wrong.”
“Lucy Lennox! I am astonished!” was all Morris could
say, as the tinge of wounded pride dyed his cheek.
Kate was a connection—distant, it is true; but his
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blood was in her veins, and his inborn pride shrank
from receiving so much from strangers, while he wondered
at her mother, feeling more and more convinced
that what he had so long suspected was literally true.
Mrs. Lennox was weak, Mrs. Lennox was ambitious, and
for the sake of associating her daughter with people
whom the world had placed above her she would stoop to
accept that upon which she had no claim.
“Mrs. Woodhull was so urgent and so fond of Katy;
and then I thought it well to give her the advantage of
being with such people as compose that party, the very
first in Canandaigua, besides some from New York,” Mrs.
Lennox began in self-defence, but Morris did not stop to
hear more, and hurried off a second time, while Mrs.
Lennox looked after him, wondering at the feeling which
she could not understand. “If Katy can go with the
Woodhulls and their set, I certainly shall not prevent it,”
she thought, as she continued her arrangement of the
parlor, wishing that it was more like what she remembered
Mrs. Woodhull's to have been, fifteen years ago.
Of course that lady had kept up with the times, and if
her old house was finer than anything Mrs. Lennox had
ever seen, what must her new one be, with all the modern
improvements? and leaning her head upon the mantel,
Mrs. Lennox thought how proud she should be could she
live to see her daughter in similar circumstances to the
envied Mrs. Woodhull, at that moment in the crowded
car between Boston and Silverton, tired, hot, and dusty,
and as nearly cross as a fashionable lady can be.
A call from Uncle Ephraim roused her, and going out
into the square entry she tied his linen cravat, and then
handing him the blue umbrella, an appendage he took
with him in sunshine and in storm, she watched him as
he stepped into his one-horse wagon and drove briskly
away in the direction of the depot, where he was to meet
his niece.
“I wish Cousin Morris had offered his carriage,” she
thought, as the corn-colored wagon disappeared from
view. “The train stops five minutes at West Silverton,
and some of those grand people will be likely to see the
turnout,” and with a sigh as she doubted whether it were
not a disgrace as well as an inconvenience to be poor, she
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repaired to the kitchen, where sundry savory smells betokened
a plentiful dinner.
Bending over the sink, with her cap strings tucked
back, her sleeves rolled up, and her short purple calico
shielded from harm by her broad check apron, Aunt
Betsy stood cleaning the silvery onions, and occasionally
wiping her dim old eyes as the odor proved too strong
for her. At another table stood Aunt Hannah, deep in
the mysteries of the light white crust which was to cover
the tender chicken boiling in the pot, while in the oven
bubbled and baked the custard pie, remembered as Katy's
favorite, and prepared for her coming by Helen herself—
plain spoken, dark eyed Helen—now out in the strawberry
beds, picking the few luscious berries which almost
by a miracle had been coaxed to wait for Katy, who loved
them so dearly. Like her mother, Helen had wondered
how the change would impress her bright little sister,
for she remembered that even to her obtuse perceptions
there had come a pang when after only three months
abiding in a place where the etiquette of life was rigidly
enforced, she had returned to their homely ways at Silverton,
and felt that it was worse than vain to try to effect a
change. But Helen's strong sense, with the help of two
or three good cries, had carried her safely through, and
her humble home among the hills was very dear to her
now. But she was Helen, as the mother had said; she was
different from Katy, who might be lonely and homesick,
sobbing herself to sleep in her patient sister's arms, as
she did on that first night in Canandaigua, which Helen
remembered so well.
“It's better, too, now than when I came home,” Helen
thought, as with her rich, scarlet fruit she went slowly to
the house. “Morris is here, and the new church, and if
she likes she can teach in Sunday-school, though maybe
she will prefer going with Uncle Ephraim. He will be
pleased if she does,” and pausing by the door, Helen
looked across Fairy Pond in the direction of Silverton
village, where the top of a slender spire was just visible—
the spire of St John's, built within the year, and mostly
at the expense of Dr. Morris Grant, who, a zealous
churchman himself, had labored successfully to instill into
Helen's mind some of his own peculiar views, as well
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as to awaken in Mrs. Lennox's heart the professions
which had lain dormant for as long a time as the little
black bound book had lain on the cupboard shelf, forgotten
and unread.
How the doctor's views were regarded by the Deacon's
family we shall see, by and by. At present our story has
to do with Helen, holding her bowl of berries by the rear
door and looking across the distant fields. With one
last glance at the object of her thoughts she re-entered
the house, where her mother was arranging the square
table for dinner, bringing out the white stone china instead
of the mulberry set kept for every day use.
“We ought to have some silver forks,” she said despondingly,
as she laid by each plate the three tined forks of
steel, to pay for which Helen and Katy had picked huckleberries
on the hills and dried apples from the orchard.
“Never mind, mother,” Helen answered cheerily: “if
Katy is as she used to be she will care more for us than
for silver, and I guess she is, for I imagine it would take
a great deal to make her anything but a warmhearted,
merry little creature.”
This was sensible Helen's tribute of affection to the
little, gay, chattering butterfly, at that moment an occupant
of Uncle Ephraim's corn-colored wagon, and riding
with that worthy toward home, throwing kisses to every
barefoot boy and girl she met, and screaming with delight
as the old familiar waymarks met her view.
“There is Aunt Betsy, with her dress pinned up as usual,”
she cried, when at last the wagon stopped before the
door, and the four women came hurriedly out to meet
her, almost smothering her with caresses, and then holding
her off to see if she had changed.
She was very stylish in her pretty traveling dress of
gray, made under Mrs. Woodhull's supervision, and
nothing could be more becoming than her jaunty hat,
tied with ribbons of blue, while the dainty kids, bought
to match the dress, fitted her fat hands charmingly, and
the little high-heeled boots of soft prunella were faultless
in their style. She was very attractive in her personal
appearance, and the mental verdict of the four females regarding
her intently was something as follows: Mrs. Lennox
detected unmistakable marks of the grand society she
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had been mingling in, and was pleased accordingly; Aunt
Hannah pronounced her “the prettiest creeter she had
ever seen;” Aunt Betsy decided that her hoops were too
big and her clothes too fine for a Barlow; while Helen,
who looked beyond dress, or style, or manner, straight
into her sister's soft blue eyes, brimming with love and
tears, decided that Katy was not changed for the worse.
Nor was she. Truthful, loving, simple-hearted and full
of playful life she had gone from home, and she came
back the same, never once thinking of the difference between
the farm-house and Mrs. Woodhull's palace, or if
she did, giving the preference to the former.
“It was perfectly splendid to get home,” she said,
handing her gloves to Helen, her sun-shade to her
mother, her satchel to Aunt Hannah, and tossing her
bonnet in the vicinity of the water pail, from which it
was saved by Aunt Betsy, who put it carefully in the
press, examining it closely first and wondering how
much it cost.
Deciding that “it was a good thumpin' price,” she
returned to the kitchen, where Katy, dancing and curvetting
in circles, scarcely stood still long enough for them
to see that in spite of boarding-school fare, of which she
had complained so bitterly, her cheeks were rounder, her
eyes brighter, and her figure fuller than of old. She had
improved, but she did not appear to know it, or to guess
how beautiful she was in the fresh bloom of seventeen,
with her golden hair waving around her childish forehead,
and her deep blue eyes laughing so expressively
with each change of her constantly varying face. Everything
animate and inanimate pertaining to the old house,
came in for its share of notice. She kissed the kitten,
squeezed the cat, hugged the dog, and hugged the little
goat, tied to his post in the clover yard and trying so
hard to get free. The horse, to whom she fed handfuls
of grass, had been already hugged. She did that the
first thing after strangling Uncle Ephraim as she alighted
from the train, and some from the car window saw it,
smiling at what they termed the charming simplicity of
an enthusiastic school-girl. Blessed youth! blessed early
girlhood, surrounded by a halo of rare beauty! It was
Katy's shield and buckler, warding off many a cold
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criticism which might otherwise have been passed upon
her.
They were sitting down to dinner now, and the deacon's
voice trembled as, with the blessing invoked, he
thanked God for bringing back the little girl, whose head
was for a moment bent reverently, but quickly lifted itself
up as its owner, in the same breath with that in
which the deacon uttered his amen, declared how hungry
she was, and went into rhapsodies over the nicely cooked
viands which loaded the table. The best bits were hers
that day, and she refused nothing until it came to Aunt
Betsy's onions, once her special delight, but now declined,
greatly to the distress of the old lady, who having been
on the watch for “quirks,” as she styled any departure
from long established customs, now knew she had found
one, and with an injured expression withdrew the offered
bowl, saying sadly, “You used to eat 'em raw, Catherine;
what's got into you?”
It was the first time Aunt Betsy had called a name so
obnoxious to Kate, especially when, as in the present
case, great emphasis was laid upon the rine, and from
past experience Katy knew that her good aunt was displeased.
Her first impulse was to accept the dish refused;
but when she remembered her reason for refusing
she said, laughingly, “Excuse me, Aunt Betsy, I love
them still, but—but—well, the fact is, I am going by and
by to run over and see Cousin Morris, inasmuch as he
was not polite enough to come here, and you know it
might not be so pleasant.”
“The land!” and Aunt Betsy brightened. “If that's
all, eat 'em. 'Tain't no ways likely you'll get near enough
to him to make any difference—only turn your head
when you shake hands.”
But Katy remained incorrigible, while Helen, who
guessed that her impulsive sister was contemplating a
warmer greeting of the doctor than a mere shaking of
his hands, kindly turned the conversation by telling how
Morris was improved by his tour abroad, and how much
the poor people thought of him.
“He is very fine looking, too,” she said, whereupon
Katy involuntarily exclaimed, “I wonder if he is as handsome
as Wilford Cameron? Oh, I never wrote about
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him, did I?” and the little maiden began to blush as she
stirred her tea industriously.
“Who is Wilford Cameron?” asked Mrs. Lennox.
“Oh, he's Wilford Cameron, that's all; lives on Fifth
Avenue—is a lawyer—is very rich—a friend of Mrs.
Woodhull, and was with us in our travels,” Kate answered
rapidly, the red burning on her cheeks so brightly
that Aunt Betsy innocently passed her a big feather fan,
saying “she looked mighty hot.”
And Katy was warm, but whether from talking of Wilford
Cameron or not none could tell. She said no more
of him, but went on to speak of Morris, asking if it were
true, as she had heard, that he built the new church in
Silverton.
“Yes, and runs it, too,” Aunt Betsy answered, energetically,
proceeding to tell “what goin's on they had,
with the minister shiftin' his clothes every now and agin'
and the folks all talkin' together. Morris got me in
once,” she said, “and I thought meetin' was let out half a
dozen times, so much histin' round as there was. I'd as
soon go to a show, if it was a good one, and I told Morris
so. He laughed and said I'd feel different when I knew
'em better; but needn't tell me that prayers made up is
as good as them as isn't, though Morris, I do believe,
will get to Heaven a long ways ahead of me, if he is a
'Piscopal.”
To this there was no response, and being launched on
her favorite topic, Aunt Betsy continued:
“If you'll believe it, Helen here is one of 'em, and has
got a sight of 'Piscopal quirks into her head. Why, she
and Morris sing that talkin'-like singin' Sundays when
the folks get up and Helen plays the accordeon.”
“Melodeon, aunty, melodeon,” and Helen laughed
merrily at her aunt's mistake, turning the conversation
again, and this time to Canandaigua, where she had some
acquaintances.
But Katy was so much afraid of Canandaigua, and
what talking of it might lead to, that she kept to Cousin
Morris, asking innumerable questions about his house
and grounds, and whether there were as many flowers
there now as there used to be in the days when she and
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Helen went to say their lessons at Linwood, as they had
done before Morris sailed for Europe.
“I think it right mean in him not to be here to see
me,” she said, poutingly,” and I am going over as quick
as I eat my dinner.”
But against this all exclaimed at once. She was too
tired, the mother said, she must lie down and rest, while
Helen suggested that she had not told them about her
trip, and Uncle Ephraim remarked that she would not find
Morris at home, as he was going that afternoon to Spencer.
This last settled it. Katy must stay at home; but
instead of lying down or talking about her journey, she explored
every nook and crevice of the old house and barn,
finding the nest Aunt Betsy had looked for in vain, and
proving to the anxious dame that she was right when she
insisted that the speckled hen had stolen her nest and
was in the act of setting. Later in the day, a neighbor
passing by spied the little maiden riding in the cart off
into the meadow, where she sported like a child among
the mounds of fragrant hay, playing her jokes upon the
sober deacon, who smiled fondly upon her, feeling how
much lighter the labor seemed because she was there
with him, a hindrance instead of a help, in spite of her
efforts to handle the rake skillfully.
“Are you glad to have me home again, Uncle Eph?” she
asked when once she caught him regarding her with a
peculiar look.
“Yes, Katy-did, very glad,” he answered; “I've missed
you every day, though you do nothing much but bother
me.”
“Why did you look so funny at me just now?” Kate
continued, and the deacon replied: “I was thinking how
hard it would be for such a highty-tighty thing as you to
meet the crosses and disappointments which lie all along
the road which you must travel. I should hate to see
your young life crushed out of you, as young lives sometimes
are?”
“Oh, never fear for me. I am going to be happy all
my life long. Wilford Cameron said I ought to be,” and
Katy tossed into the air a wisp of the new-made hay.
“I don't know who Wilford Cameron is, but there's no
ought about it,” the deacon rejoined. “God marks out
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the path for us to walk in, and when he says it's best, we
know it is, though some are straight and pleasant and
others crooked and hard.”
“I'll choose the straight and pleasant then—why
shouldn't I?” Katy asked, laughing, as she seated herself
upon a rock near which the hay cart had stopped.
“Can't tell what path you'll take,” the deacon answered.
“God knows whether you'll go easy through the
world, or whether he'll send you suffering to purify and
make you better.”
“Purified by suffering,” Katy said aloud, while a
shadow involuntarily crept for an instant over her gay
spirits.
She could not believe she was to be purified by suffering.
She had never done anything very bad, and humming
a part of a song learned from Wilford Cameron she
followed after the loaded cart, returning slowly to the
house, thinking to herself that there must be something
great and good in the suffering which should purify at
last, but hoping she was not the one to whom this great
good should come.
It was supper-time ere long, and after that was over
Katy announced her intention of going to Linwood
whether Morris were there or not.
“I can see the housekeeper and the birds and flowers,”
she said, as she swung her straw hat by the string and
started from the door.
“Ain't Helen going with you?” Aunt Hannah asked,
while Helen herself looked a little surprised.
But Katy would rather go alone. She had a heap to
tell Cousin Morris, and Helen could go next time.
“Just as you like,” Helen answered, good-naturedly,
and so Katy went alone to call on Morris Grant.
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CHAPTER II. LINWOOD.
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MORRIS had returned from Spencer, and in his
dressing-gown and slippers was sitting by the
window of his library, looking out upon the
purple sunshine flooding the western sky, and
thinking of the little girl coming so rapidly up the grassy
lane in the rear of the house. He was going over
to see her by and by, he said, and he pictured to himself
how she must look by this time, hoping that he
should not find her greatly changed, for Morris Grant's
memories were very precious of the play-child who
used to tease and worry him so much with her
lessons poorly learned, and the never-ending jokes
played off upon her teacher. He had thought of her so
often when across the sea, and, knowing her love of the
beautiful, he had never looked upon a painting or scene
of rare beauty that he did not wish her by his side sharing
in the pleasure. He had brought her from that faroff
land many little trophies which he thought she would
prize, and which he was going to take with him when he
went to the farm-house. He never dreamed of her coming
there to-night. She would, of course, wait for him,
to call upon her first. How then was he amazed when,
just as the sun was going down and he was watching its
last rays lingering on the brow of the hill across the
pond, the library door was opened wide and the room
suddenly filled with life and joy, as a graceful figure,
with reddish golden hair, bounded across the floor, and
winding its arms around his neck gave him the hearty
kiss which Katy had in her mind when she declined Aunt
Betsy's favorite vegetable.
Morris Grant was not averse to being kissed, and yet
the fact that Katy Lennox had kissed him in such a way
awoke a chill of disappointment, for it said that to her
he was the teacher still, the elder brother, whom, as a
child, she had loaded with caresses.
“Oh, Cousin Morris!” she exclaimed, “why didn't
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you come over at noon, you naughty boy! But what a
splendid-looking man you've got to be, though! and
what do you think of me?” she added, blushing for the
first time, as he held her off from him and looked into
the sunny face.
“I think you wholly unchanged,” he answered, so
gravely that Katy began to pout as she said, “And you
are sorry, I know. Pray what did you expect of me, and
what would you have me be?”
“Nothing but what you are—the same Kitty as of
old,” he answered, his own bright smile breaking all over
his sober face.
He saw that his manner repelled her, and he tried to
be natural, succeeding so well that Katy forgot her first
disappointment, and making him sit by her on the sofa,
where she could see him distinctly, she poured forth a
volley of talk, telling him, among other things, how
much afraid of him some of his letters made her—they
were so serious and so like a sermon.
“You wrote me once that you thought of being a minister,”
she added. “Why did you change your mind?
It must be splendid, I think, to be a young clergyman—
invited to so many tea-drinkings, and having all the
girls in the parish after you, as they always are after
unmarried ministers.”
Into Morris Grant's eyes there stole a troubled light
as he thought how little Katy realized what it was to be
a minister of God—to point the people heavenward and
teach them the right way. There was a moment's pause,
and then he tried to explain to her that he hoped he
had not been influenced either by thoughts of tea-drinkings
or having the parish girls after him, but rather by
an honest desire to choose the sphere in which he could
accomplish the most good.
“I did not decide rashly,” he said, “but after weeks
of anxious thought and prayer for guidance I came to
the conclusion that in the practice of medicine I could find
perhaps as broad a field for good as in the church, and
so I decided to go on with my profession—to be a physician
of the poor and suffering, speaking to them of
Him who came to save, and in this way I shall not labor
in vain. Many would seek another place than Silverton
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and its vicinity, but something told me that my work
was here, and so I am content to stay, feeling thankful
that my means admit of my waiting for patients, if need
be, and at the same time ministering to the wants of
those who are needy.”
Gradually, as he talked, there came into his face a light,
born only from the peace which passeth understanding,
and the awe-struck Katy crept closer to his side and
grasping his hand in hers, said softly, “Dear cousin, what
a good man you are, and how silly I must seem to you,
thinking you cared for tea-drinkings, or even girls, when,
of course, you do not.”
“Perhaps I do,” the doctor replied, slightly pressing
the warm, fat hand holding his so fast. “A minister's or
a doctor's life would be dreary indeed if there was no one
to share it, and I have had my dreams of the girls, or girl,
who was some day to brighten my home.”
He looked fully at Katy now, but she was thinking of
something else, and her next remark was to ask him rather
abruptly “how old he was?”
“Twenty-six last May,” he answered, while Katy continued,
“You are not old enough to be married yet.
Wilford Cameron is thirty,”
“Where did you meet Wilford Cameron?” Morris
asked, in some surprise, and then the story which Katy
had not told, even to her sister, came out in full, and
Morris tried to listen patiently while Katy explained how,
on the very first day of the examination, Mrs. Woodhull
had come in, and with her the grandest, proudest-looking
man, who the girls said was Mr. Wilford Cameron, from
New York, a fastidious bachelor, whose family were noted
for their wealth and exclusiveness, keeping six servants,
and living in the finest style; that Mrs. Woodhull, who
all through the year had been very kind to Katy, came to
her after school and invited her home to tea; that she
had gone and met Mr. Cameron; that she was very much
afraid of him at first, and was not sure that she was quite
over it now, although he was so polite to her all through
the journey, taking so much pains to have her see the
finest sights, and laughing at her enthusiasm.
“Wilford Cameron with you in your trip?” Morris
asked, a new idea dawning on his mind.
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“Yes, let me tell you,” and Katy spoke rapidly. “I
saw him that night, and then Mrs. Woodhull took me to
ride with him in the carriage, and then—well, I rode alone
with him once down by the lake, and he talked to me just
as if he was not a grand man and I a little school-girl.
And when the term closed I staid at Mrs. Woodhull's and
he was there. He liked my playing and liked my singing,
and I guess he liked me—that is, you know—yes, he liked
me some,” and Katy twisted the fringe of her shawl, while
Morris, in spite of the pain tugging at his heart strings,
laughed aloud as he rejoined, “I have no doubt he did;
but go on—what next?”
“He said more about my joining that party than anybody,
and I am very sure he paid the bills.”
“Oh, Katy,” and Morris started as if he had been stung.
“I would rather have given Linwood than have you thus
indebted to Wilford Cameron, or any other man.”
“I could not well help it. I did not mean any harm,”
Katy said timidly, explaining how she had shrunk from
the proposition which Mrs. Woodhull thought was right,
urging it until she had consented, and telling how kind
Mr. Cameron was, and how careful not to remind her of
her indebtedness to him, attending to and anticipating
every want as if she had been his sister.
“You would like Mr. Cameron, Cousin Morris. He
made me think of you a little, only he is prouder,” and
Katy's hand moved up Morris's coat sleeve till it rested
on his shoulder.
“Perhaps so,” Morris answered, feeling a growing resentment
towards one who it seemed to him had done
him some great wrong.
But Wilford was not to blame, he reflected. He could
not help admiring the bright little Katy—and so conquering
all ungenerous feelings, he turned to her at last, and
said,
“Did my little Cousin Kitty like Wilford Cameron?”
Something in Morris's voice startled Katy strangely;
her hand came down from his shoulder, and for an instant
there swept over her an emotion similar to what she had
felt when with Wilford Cameron she rambled along the
shores of Lake George, or sat alone with him on the deck
of the steamer which carried them down Lake Champlain.
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But Morris had always been her brother, and she did not
guess that she was more to him than a sister, so she answered
frankly at last, “I guess I did like him a little. I
couldn't help it, Morris. You could not either, or any one.
I believe Mrs. Woodhull was more than half in love with
him herself, and she talked so much of his family; they
must be very grand.”
“Yes, I know those Camerons,” was Morris's quiet remark.
“What! You don't know Wilford?” Katy almost
screamed, and Morris replied, “Not Wilford, no; but the
mother and the sisters were in Paris, and I met them
many times.”
“What were they doing in Paris?” Katy asked, and Morris
replied that he believed the immediate object of their
being there was to obtain the best medical advice for a little
orphan grand-child, a bright, beautiful boy, to whom some
terrible accident had happened in infancy, preventing his
walking entirely, and making him nearly helpless. His
name was Jamie, Morris said, and as he saw that Katy was
interested, he told her how sweet-tempered the little fellow
was, how patient under suffering, and how eagerly he
listened when Morris, who at one time attended him, told
him of the Saviour and his love for little children.
“Did he get well?” Katy asked, her eyes filling with
tears at the picture Morris drew of Jamie Cameron, sitting
all day long in his wheel chair, and trying to comfort
his grand-mother's distress when the torturing instruments
for straightening his poor back were applied.
“No, he died one lovely day in October, and they
buried him beneath the bright skies of France,” Morris
said, and then Katy asked about the mother and sister.
“Were they proud, and did he like them much?”
“They were very proud,” Morris said; “but they were
always civil to him,” and Katy, had she been watching,
might have seen a slight flush on his cheek as he told her
of the stately woman, Wilford's mother, of the haughty
Juno, a beauty and a belle, and lastly of Arabella, whom
the family nicknamed Bluebell, from her excessive fondness
for books, and her contempt for the fashionable
life her mother and sister led.
It was evident that neither of the young ladies were
-- 027 --
[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]
wholly to Morris's taste, but of the two he preferred
Bluebell, for though imperious and self-willed, she had
some heart, some principle, while Juno had none. This
was Morris's opinion, and it disturbed little Katy, as was
very perceptible from the nervous tapping of her foot
upon the carpet and the working of her hands.
“How would I appear by the side of those ladies?” she
suddenly asked, her countenance changing as Morris replied
that it was almost impossible to think of her as associated
with the Camerons, she was so wholly unlike
them in every respect.
“I don't believe I shocked Wilford so very much,”
Katy rejoined, reproachfully, while again a heavy pain
shot through Morris's heart, for he saw more and more
how Wilford Cameron was mingled with every thought of
the young girl, who continued: “And if he was satisfied,
his mother and sisters will be. Any way, I don't want
you to make me feel how different I am from them.”
There were tears now on Katy's face, and casting aside
all selfishness, Morris wound his arm around her, and
smoothing her golden hair, just as he used to do when
she was a child and came to him to be soothed, he said,
very gently,
“My poor Kitty, you do like Wilford Cameron; tell
me honestly—is it not so?”
“Yes, I guess I do,” and Katy's voice was a half sob.
“I could not help it, either, he was so kind, so—I don't
know what, only I could not help doing what he bade me.
Why, if he had said, `Jump overboard, Katy Lennox,' I
should have done it, I know—that is, if his eyes had been
upon me, they controlled me so absolutely. Can you imagine
what I mean?”
“Yes, I understand. There was the same look in Bell
Cameron's eye, a kind of mesmeric influence which commanded
obedience. They idolize Wilford, and I dare say
he is worthy of their idolatry. One thing at least is in
his favor—the crippled Jamie, for whose opinion I would
give more than all the rest, seemed to worship his Uncle
Will; talking of him continually, and telling how kind he
was, sometimes staying up all night to carry him in his
arms when the pain in his back was more than usually
severe. So there must be a good, kind heart in Wilford
-- 028 -- p591-033
[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]
Cameron, and if my Cousin Kitty likes him, as she says
she does, and he likes her as I believe he must, why, I
hope—”
Morris Grant could not finish the sentence, for he did
not hope that Wilford Cameron would win the gem he had
so long coveted as his own.
He might give Kitty up because she loved another best.
He was generous enough to do that, but if he did it, she
must never know how much it cost him, and lest he
should betray himself he could not to-night talk with her
longer of Wilford Cameron. It was time too for Katy
to go home, but she did not seem to remember it until
Morris suggested to her that her mother might be uneasy
if she staid away much longer, and so they went together
across the fields, the shadows all gone from Katy's heart,
but lying so dark and heavy around Morris Grant, who
was glad when he could leave Katy at the farm-house door
and go back alone to the quiet library, where only God
could witness the mighty struggle, it was for him to say,
“Thy will be done.” And while he prayed, Katy, in her
humble bedroom, with her head nestled close to Helen's
neck, was telling her of Wilford Cameron, who, when they
went down the rapids and she had cried with fear, had
put his arm around her trying to quiet her, and who once
again, on the mountain overlooking Lake George, had
held her hand a moment, while he pointed out a splendid
view seen through the opening trees. And Helen, listening,
knew that Katy's heart was lost, and that for Wilford
Cameron to deceive her now would be a cruel thing.
CHAPTER III. WILFORD CAMERON.
THE day succeeding Katy Lenox's return to Silverton
was rainy and cold for the season, the storm extending
as far westward as the city of New York,
and making Wilford Cameron shiver as he stepped
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[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]
from the Hudson River cars into the carriage waiting for
him, first greeting pleasantly the white-gloved driver,
who, closing the carriage door, mounted to his seat and
drove his handsome bays in the direction of No. — Fifth
Avenue. And Wilford, leaning back among the cushions,
thought how pleasant it was to be home again, feeling glad,
as he frequently did, that the home was in every particular
unexceptionable. The Camerons, he knew, were an old
and highly respectable family, while it was his mother's
pride that, go back as far as one might, on either side
there could not be found a single blemish, or a member
of whom to be ashamed. On the Cameron side there
were millionaires, merchant princes, bankers, and stockholders,
professors and scholars, while on hers, the Rossiter
side, there were LL.D.'s and D. D.'s, lawyers and
clergymen, authors and artists, beauties and belles, the
whole forming an illustrious line of ancestry, admirably
represented and sustamed by the present family of Camerons,
occupying the brown-stone front, corner of —
street and Fifth Avenue, where the handsome carriage
stopped, and a tall figure ran quickly up the marble steps.
There was a soft rustle of silk, an odor of delicate perfume,
and from the luxurious chair before the fire kindled
in the grate, a lady rose and advanced a step or two
towards the parlor door. In another moment she was
kissing the young man bending over her and saluting her
as mother, kissing him quietly, properly, as the Camerons
always kissed. She was very glad to have Wilford
home again, for he was her favorite child; and brushing
the rain-drops from his coat she led him to the fire, offering
him her own easy-chair, and starting herself in quest
of another. But Wilford held her back, and making her
sit down, he drew an ottoman beside her, and then asked
her first how she had been, then where his sisters were,
and if his father had come home—for there was a father,
a quiet, unassuming man, who stayed all day in Wall
street, seldom coming home in time to carve at his own
dinner table, and when he was at home, asking for nothing
except to be left by his fashionable wife and daughters
to himself, free to smoke and doze over his evening
paper in the seclusion of his own reading-room.
As Wilford's question concerning his sire had been the
-- 030 --
[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]
last one asked, so it was the last one answered, his
mother parting his dark hair with her jeweled hand, and
telling him first that, with the exception of a cold taken
at the Park on Saturday afternoon, she was in usual
health—second, that Juno was spending a few days in
Orange, and that Bell had gone to pass the night with
her particular friend, Mrs. Meredith, the most bookish
woman in New York.
“Your father,” the lady added, “has not yet returned;
but as the dinner is ready I think we will not wait.”
She touched a silver bell beside her, and ordering dinner
to be sent up at once, went on to ask her son concerning
his journey and the people he had met. But
Wilford, though intending to tell her all, would wait till
after dinner. So, offering her his arm, he led her out to
where the table was spread, widely different from the
table prepared for Katy Lennox among the Silverton hills,
for where at the farm-house there had been only the
homely wares common to the country, with Aunt Betsy's
onions served in a bowl, there was here the finest of
damask, the choicest of china, the costliest of cut-glass,
and the heaviest of silver, with the well-trained waiter
gliding in and out, himself the very personification of
strict table etiquette, such as the Barlows had never
dreamed about. There was no fricasseed chicken here,
or flaky crust, with pickled beans and apple-sauce; no
custard pie with strawberries and rich, sweet cream,
poured from a blue earthen pitcher; but there were
soups, and fish, and roasted meats, and dishes with
French names and taste, and dessert elaborately gotten
up, and served with the utmost precision, and Mrs. Cameron
presiding over all with lady-like decorum, her soft
glossy silk of brown, with her rich lace and diamond pin
in perfect keeping with herself and her surroundings.
And opposite to her Wilford sat, a tall, dark, handsome
man, of thirty or thereabouts—a man, whose polished
manners betokened at once a perfect knowledge of the
world, and whose face, to a close observer, indicated how
little satisfaction he had as yet found in the world. He had
tried its pleasures, drinking the cup of freedom and happiness
to its very dregs, and though he thought he liked
it, he often found himself dissatisfied and reaching after
-- 031 --
[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]
something which should make life more real, more worth
the living for. He had traveled all over Europe twice,
had visited every spot worth visiting in his own country,
had been a frequenter of every fashionable resort in New
York, from the skating-pond to the theatres, had been
admitted as a lawyer, had opened an office on Broadway,
acquiring some reputation in his profession, had looked
at more than twenty girls with the view of making them
his wife, and found them, as he believed, alike fickle, selfish,
artificial and hollow-hearted. In short, while thinking
far more of family, and accomplishments, and style,
than he ought, he was yet heartily tired of the butterflies
who flitted so constantly around him, offering to be
caught if he would but stretch out his hand to catch
them. This he would not do, and disgusted with the
world as he saw it in New York, he had gone to the Far
West, roaming awhile amid the solitude of the broad prairies,
and finding there much that was soothing to him,
but not discovering the fulfillment of the great want he
was craving until coming back to Canandaigua, he met
with Katy Lennox. He had smiled wearily when asked by
Mrs. Woodhull to go with her to the examination then in
progress at the Seminary. There was nothing there to
interest him, he thought, as Euclid and Algebra, French
and Rhetoric were bygone things, while young schoolmisses,
in braided hair and pantalettes, were shockingly
insipid. Still, to be polite to Mrs. Woodhull, a childless,
fashionable woman, who patronized Canandaigua generally
and Katy Lennox in particular, he consented, and
soon found himself in the crowded room, the cynosure
of many eyes as the whisper ran round that the fine-looking
man with Mrs. Woodhull was Wilford Cameron,
from New York, brother to the proud, dashing Juno
Cameron, who once spent a few weeks in town. Wilford
knew they were talking about him, but he did not care,
and assuming as easy an attitude as possible, he leaned
back in his chair, yawning indolently until the class in
Algebra was called, and Katy Lennox came tripping on
the stage, a pale blue ribbon in her golden hair, and her
simple dress of white relieved by no ornament except the
cluster of wild flowers fastened in her belt and at her
throat. But Katy needed no ornaments to make her
-- 032 --
[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]
more beautiful than she was at the moment when, with
glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, she first burst upon
Wilford's vision, a creature of rare, bewitching beauty,
such as he had never dreamed about.
Wilford had met his destiny, and he felt it in every
throb of blood which went rushing through his veins.
“Who is she?” he asked of Mrs. Woodhull, and that
lady knew at once whom he meant, even though he had
not designated her.
An old acquaintance of Mrs. Lennox when she lived in
East Bloomfield, Mrs. Woodhull had petted Katy from the
first day of her arrival in Canadaigua with a letter of
introduction to herself from the ambitious mother, and
being rather inclined to match-making, she had had Katy
in her mind when she urged Wilford to accompany her to
the Seminary. Accordingly she answered him at once,
“That is Katy Lennox, daughter of Judge Lennox, who
died in East Bloomfield a few years ago.”
“Pretty, is she not?”
Wilford did not answer her. He had neither eye nor
ear for anything save Katy, acquitting herself with a good
deal of credit as she worked out a rather difficult problem,
her dimpled white hand showing to good advantage
against the deep black of the board; and then her voice,
soft-toned and silvery, as a lady's voice should be, thrilled
in Wilford's ear, awaking a strange feeling of disquiet, as
if the world would never again be quite the same to him
that it was before he met that fair young girl now passing
from the room.
Mrs. Woodhull saw that he was interested. It was
time he was settled in life. With the exception of wealth
and family position, he could not find a better wife than
Katy, and she would do what she could to bring the
marriage about. Accordingly, having first gained the
preceptress's consent, Katy was taken home with her to
dinner. And this was how Wilford Cameron came to
know little Katy Lennox, the simple-hearted child, who
blushed so prettily when first presented to him, and
blushed again when he praised her recitations, but who
after that forgot the difference in their social relations,
laughing and chatting as merrily in his presence as if
she had been alone with Mrs. Woodhull. This was the
-- 033 --
[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]
great charm to Wilford. Katy was so wholly unconscious
of herself or what he might think of her, that he could
not sit in judgment upon her, and he watched her eagerly
as she sported, and flashed, and sparkled, filling the
room with sunshine, and putting to rout the entire regiment
of blues which had been for months harassing the
city-bred young man.
If there was any one thing in which Katy excelled, it
was music, both vocal and instrumental, a taste for
which had been developed very early, and fostered by
Morris Grant, who had seen that his cousin had every
advantage which Silverton could afford. Great pains had
been given to her style of playing while in Canandaigua, so
that as a performer upon the piano she had few rivals in the
seminary, while her birdlike voice filled every nook and
corner of the room, where, on the night after her visit to
Mrs. Woodhull, a select exhibition was held, Katy shining
as the one bright star, and winning golden laurels
for beauty, grace, and perfect self-possession, from others
than Wilford Cameron, who was one of the invited auditors.
Juno herself could not equal that, he thought, as
Katy's fingers flew over the keys, executing a brilliant
and difficult piece without a single mistake, and receiving
the applause of the spectators easily, naturally, as if
it were an every day occurrence. But when by request
she sang “Comin' through the Rye,” Wilford's heart, if
he had any before, was wholly gone, and he dreamed of
Katy Lennox that night, wondering all the ensuing day
how his haughty mother would receive that young school
girl as her daughter, wife of the son whose bride she
fancied must be equal to the first lady in the land. And
if Katy were not now equal she could be made so, Wilford
thought, wondering if Canandaigua were the best
place for her, and if she would consent to receive a year
or two years' tuition from him, provided her family were
poor. He did not know as they were, but he would ask,
and he did, feeling a pang of regret when he heard to
some extent how Katy was circumstanced. Mrs. Woodhull
had never been to Silverton, and so she did not
know of Uncle Ephraim, and his old-fashioned sister; but
she knew that they were poor—that some relation sent
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[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]
Katy to school; and she frankly told Wilford so, adding,
as she detected the shadow on his face, that one could
not expect everything, and that a girl like Katy was not
found every day. Wilford admitted all this, growing
more and more infatuated, until at last he consented to
join the traveling party, provided Katy joined it too, and
when on the morning of their departure for the Falls he
seated himself beside her in the car, he could not well
have been happier, unless she had really been his wife,
as he so much wished she was.
It was a most delightful trip, and Wilford was better
satisfied with himself than he had been before in years.
His past life was not all free from error, and there were
many sad memories haunting him, but with Katy at his
side, seeing what he saw, admiring what he admired, and
doing what he bade her do, he gave the bygones to the
wind, feeling only an intense desire to clasp the young
girl in his arms and bear her away to some spot where
with her pure fresh life all his own he could begin the
world anew, and retrieve the past which he had lost.
This was when he was with Katy. Away from her he
could remember the difference in their position, and
prudential motives began to make themselves heard.
Never but once had he taken an important step without
consulting his mother, and the trouble in which that
had involved him warned him to be more cautious a
second time. And this was why Katy came back to Silverton
unengaged, leaving her heart with Wilford Cameron,
who would first seek advice from his mother ere
committing himself by word. He had seen the white-haired
man waiting for her when the train stopped at Silverton,
but standing there as he did, with his silvery
locks parted in the centre, and shading his honest, open
face, Uncle Ephraim looked like some patriarch of old
rather than a man to be despised, and Wilford felt only
respect for him until he saw Katy's arms wound so lovingly
around his neck as she called him Uncle Eph.
That sight grated harshly, and Wilford felt glad that he
was not bound to her by any pledge. Very curiously he
looked after the couple, witnessing the meeting between
Katy and old Whitey, and guessing rightly that the corn-colored
vehicle was the one sent to transport Katy home.
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[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]
He was very moody for the remainder of the route between
Silverton and Albany, where he parted with his
Canandaigua friends, they going on to the westward,
while he stopped all night in Albany, where he had some
business to transact for his father.
He was intending to tell his mother everything, except
that he paid Katy's bills. He would rather keep
that to himself, as it might shock his mother's sense of
propriety and make her think less of Katy; so after dinner
was over, and they had returned to the parlor, he
opened the subject by asking her to guess what took
him off so suddenly with Mrs. Woodhull.
The mother did not know—unless—and a strange
light gleamed in her eye, as she asked if it were some
girl.
“Yes, mother, it was,” and without any reservation
Wilford frankly told the story of his interest in Katy
Lennox.
He admitted that she was poor and unaccustomed to
society, but he loved her more than words could express.
“Not as I loved Genevra,” he said, and there came a
look of intense pain into his eyes as he continued.
“That was the passion of a boy of nineteen, stimulated
by secrecy, but this is the love of a mature man of thirty,
who feels that he is capable of judging for himself.”
In Wilford's voice there was a tone warning the mother
that opposition would only feed the flame, and so she
offered none directly, but heard him patiently to the
end, and then quietly questioned him of Katy and her
family, especially the last. What did he know of it?
Was it one to detract from the Cameron line, kept untarnished
so long? Were the relatives such as he never
need blush to own even if they came there into their
drawing-rooms as they would come if Katy did?
Wilford thought of Uncle Ephraim as he had seen him
upon the platform at Silverton, and could scarcely repress
a smile as he pictured to himself his mother's consternation
at beholding that man in her drawing-room.
But he did not mention the deacon, though he acknowledged
that Katy's family friends were not exactly the
Cameron style. But Katy was young: Katy could be
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[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]
easily moulded, and once away from her old associates,
his mother and sisters could make of her what they
pleased.
“I understand, then, that if you marry her you do not
marry the family,” and in the handsome matronly face
there was an expression from which Katy would have
shrunk, could she have seen it and understood its meaning.
“No, I do not marry the family,” Wilford rejoined
emphatically, but the expression of his face was different
from his mother's, for where she thought only of herself,
not hesitating to trample on all Katy's love of home and
friends, Wilford remembered Katy, thinking how he
would make amends for separating her wholly from her
home as he surely meant to do if he should win her.
“Did I tell you,” he continued, “that her father was a
judge? She must be well connected on that side. And
now, what shall I do?” he asked playfully. “Shall I
propose to Katy Lennox, or shall I try to forget her?”
“I should not do either,” was Mrs. Cameron's reply,
for she knew that trying to forget her was the surest
way of keeping her in mind, and she dared not confess
to him how determined she was that Katy Lennox should
never be her daughter if she could prevent it.
If she could not, then as a lady and a woman of policy,
she should make the most of it, receiving Katy kindly
and doing her best to educate her up to the Cameron
ideas of style and manner.
“Let matters take their course for a while,” she said,
“and see how you feel after a little. We are going to
Newport the first of August, and perhaps you may find
somebody there infinitely superior to this Katy Lennox.
That's your father's ring. He is earlier than usual to-night.
I would not tell him yet, till you are more decided,”
and the lady went hastily out into the hall to
meet her husband.
A moment more and the elder Cameron appeared—a
short, square-built man, with a face seamed with lines
of care and eyes much like Wilford's, save that the shaggy
eyebrows gave them a different expression. He was very
glad to see his son, though he merely shook his hand,
asking what nonsense took him off around the Lakes
-- 037 --
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with Mrs. Woodhull, and wondering if women were never
happy unless they were chasing after fashion. The elder
Cameron was evidently not of his wife's way of thinking,
but she let him go on until he was through, and then,
with the most unruffled mien, suggested that his dinner
would be cold. He was accustomed to that and so he
did not mind, but he hurried through his lonely meal to-night,
for Wilford was home, and the father was always
happier when he knew his son was in the house. Contrary
to his usual custom, he spent the short summer
evening in the parlor, talking with Wilford on various
items of business, and thus preventing any further conversation
concerning Katy Lennox. It took but a short
time for Wilford to fall back into his old way of living,
passing a few hours of each day in his office, driving with
his mother, sparring with his imperious sister Juno, and
teasing his blue sister Bell, but never after that first
night breathing a word to any one of Katy Lennox.
And still Katy was not forgotten, as his mother sometimes
believed. On the contrary, the very silence he
kept concerning her increased his passion, until he began
seriously to contemplate a trip to Silverton. The family's
removal to Newport, however, diverted his attention for
a little, making him decide to wait and see what Newport
might have in store for him. But Newport was dull this
season, though Juno and Bell both found ample scope
for their different powers of attraction, and his mother was
always happy when showing off her children and knowing
that they were appreciated, but with Wilford it was
different. Listless and taciturn, he went through with
the daily routine, wondering how he had ever found happiness
there, and finally, at the close of the season, casting
all policy and prudence aside, he wrote to Katy Lennox
that he was coming to Silverton on his way home,
and that he presumed he should have no difficulty in
finding his way to the farm-house.
-- 038 -- p591-043
CHAPTER IV. PREPARING FOR THE VISIT.
[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]
KATY had waited very anxiously for a letter from
Wilford, and as the weeks went by and nothing
came, a shadow had fallen upon her spirits and
the family missed something from her ringing laugh and
frolicsome ways, while she herself wondered at the
change which had come over everything. Even the light
household duties she used to enjoy so much, were irksome
to her, and she enjoyed nothing except going with
Uncle Ephraim into the fields where she could sit alone
while he worked near by, or to ride with Morris as she
sometimes did when he made his round of calls. She
was not as good as she used to be, she thought, and with
a view of making herself better she took to teaching in
Morris and Helen's Sunday School, greatly to the distress
of Aunt Betsy, who groaned bitterly when both her
nieces adopted the “Episcopal quirks,” forsaking entirely
the house where, Sunday after Sunday, her old-fashioned
leghorn, with its faded ribbon of green was seen, bending
down in the humble worship which God so much approves.
But teaching in Sunday-school, taken by itself,
could not make Katy better, and the old restlessness
remained until the morning when, sitting on the grass
beneath the apple-tree, she read that Wilford Cameron
was coming; then everything was changed and Katy never
forgot the brightness of that day when the robins sang
so merrily above her head, and all nature seemed to sympathize
with her joy. There was no shadow around her
now, nothing but hopeful sunshine, and with a bounding
step she sought out Helen to tell her the good news.
Helen's first remark, however, was a chill upon her
spirits.
“Wilford Cameron coming here? What will he think
of us, we are so unlike him?”
This was the first time Katy had seriously considered
the difference between her surroundings and those of
Wilford Cameron, or how it might affect him. But Aunt
-- 039 --
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Betsy, who had never dreamed of anything like Wilford's
home, comforted her, telling her, “if he was any
kind of a chap he wouldn't be looking round, and if he
did, who cared? She guessed they were as good as he,
and as much thought of by the neighbors.”
Wilford's letter had been delayed so that the morrow
was the day appointed for his coming, and never was
there a busier afternoon at the farm-house than the one
which followed the receipt of the letter. Everything not
spotlessly clean before was made so now, Aunt Betsy, in
her petticoat and short gown, going down upon her
knees to scrub the back door-sill, as if the city guest were
expected to notice that. On Aunt Hannah and Mrs. Lennox
devolved the duty of preparing for the wants of the
inner man, while Helen and Katy bent their energies to
beautifying their home and making the most of their
plain furniture.
The “spare bed-room,” kept for company, was only
large enough to admit the high-post bed, a single chair,
and the old-fashioned wash-stand, with the hole in the
top for the bowl, and a drawer beneath for towels; and
the two girls held a consultation as to whether it would
not be better to dispense with the parlor altogether, and
give that room to their visitor. But this was vetoed by
Aunt Betsy, who, having finished the back door-sill, had
now come round to the front, and with her scrubbingbrush
in one hand and her saucer of sand in the other,
held forth upon the foolishness of the girls.
“Of course, if they had a beau, they'd want a t'other
room, else where would they do their sparkin'?”
That settled it. The parlor must remain as it was,
Katy said, and Aunt Betsy went on with her scouring,
while Helen and Katy consulted together how to make
the huge feather-bed more like the mattresses to which
Wilford must be accustomed. Helen's mind being the
more suggestive, solved the problem first, and a large
comfortable was brought from the box in the garret and
folded carefully over the bed, which, thus hardened and
flattened, “seemed like a mattress,” Katy said, for she
tried it, feeling quite well satisfied with the room when it
was finished. And certainly it was not uninviting, with
its strip of bright carpeting upon the floor, its vase of
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flowers upon the stand, and its white-fringed curtain sweeping
back from the narrow window.
“I'd like to sleep here myself,” was Katy's comment,
while Helen offered no opinion, but followed her sister
into the yard, where they were to sweep the grass and
prune the early September flowers.
This afforded Aunt Betsy a chance to reconnoitre and
criticise, which last she did unsparingly.
“What have them children been doin' to that bed?
Put on a quilt, as I'm alive! It would break my back to
lie there, and this Carmon is none of the youngest,
accordin' to their tell; nigh onto thirty, if not turned. It
will make his bones ache, of course. I am glad I know
better than to treat visitors that way. The comforter
may stay, but I'll be bound I'll make it softer!” And
stealing up the stairs, Aunt Betsy brought down a second
feather-bed, much lighter than the one already on, but still
large enough to suggest the thought of smothering. This
she had made herself, intending it as a part of Katy's
“setting out,” should she ever marry; and as things now
seemed tending that way, it was only right, she thought,
that Mr. Carmon, as she called him, should begin to have
the benefit of it. Accordingly two beds, instead of one,
were placed beneath the comfortable, which Aunt Betsy
permitted to remain.
“I'm mighty feared they'll find me out,” she said, taking
great pains in the making of her bed, and succeeding
so well that when her task was done there was no
perceptible difference between Helen's bed and her own,
except that the latter was a few inches higher than the
former, and more nearly resembled a pincushion in shape.
There was but little chance for Aunt Betsy to be detected,
for Helen, supposing the room to be in order, had
dismissed it from her mind, and was training a rose over
a frame, while Katy was on her way to Linwood in quest
of various little things which Mrs. Lennox considered indispensable
to the entertainment of a man like Wilford
Cameron. Morris was out on his piazza, enjoying the
fine prospect he had of the sun shining across the pond,
on the Silverton hill, and just gilding the top of the little
church nestled in the valley. At sight of Katy he rose
and greeted her with the kind, brotherly manner now
-- 041 --
[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]
habitual with him, for he had learned to listen quite
calmly while Katy talked to him, as she often did, of
Wilford Cameron, never trying to conceal from him
how anxious she was for some word of remembrance,
and often asking if he thought Mr. Cameron would
ever write to her. It was hard at first for Morris to
listen, and harder still to keep back the passionate words
of love trembling on his lips—to refrain from asking her
to take him in Cameron's stead—him who had loved her
so long. But Morris had kept silence, and as the weeks
went by there came insensibly into his heart a hope, or
rather conviction, that Wilford Cameron had forgotten
the little girl who might in time turn to him, gladdening
his home just as she did every spot where her fairy footsteps
trod. Morris did not fully know that he was hugging
this fond dream until he felt the keen pang which cut
like a dissector's knife as Katy, turning her bright, eager
face up to him, whispered softly, “He's coming to-morrow—
he surely is; I have his letter to tell me so.”
Morris could not see the sunshine upon the distant
hills, although it lay there just as purple and warm as it
had a moment before. There was an instant of darkness,
in which the hills, the pond, the sun setting, and Katy
seemed a great way off to Morris, trying so hard to be
calm, and mentally asking for help to do so. But Katy's
hat, which she swung in her hand, had become entangled
in the vines encircling one of the pillars of the piazza,
and so she did not notice him until all traces of his agitation
were past, and he could talk with her concerning
Wilford; then playfully lifting her basket he asked what
she had come to get.
This was not the first time the great house had rendered
a like service to the little house, and so Katy did
not blush when she explained that her mother wanted
Morris's forks, and salt-cellars, and spoons, and would he
be kind enough to bring the caster over himself, and
come to dinner to-morrow at two o'clock, and would he
go for Mr. Cameron? The forks, and salt-cellars, and
spoons, and caster were cheerfully promised, while Morris
consented to go for the guest; and then Katy came to
the rest of her errand, the part distasteful to her, inasmuch
as it concerned Uncle Ephraim—honest,
-- 042 --
[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]
unsophisticated Uncle Ephraim, who would come to the table in his
shirt sleeves! This was the burden of her grief—the
one thing she dreaded most, because she knew how such
an act was looked upon by Mr. Cameron, who, never
having lived in the country a day in his life, except as he
was either guest or traveler, could not make due allowance
for these little departures from refinement, so obnoxious
to people of his training.
“What is it, Katy?” Morris asked, as he saw how she
hesitated, and guessed her errand was not all told.
“I hope you will not think me foolish or wicked,”
Katy began, her eyes filling with tears, as she felt that
she might be doing Uncle Ephraim a wrong by admitting
that in any way he could be improved. “I certainly love
Uncle Ephraim dearly, and I do not mind his ways, but—
but—Mr. Cameron may—that is, oh, Cousin Morris,
did you ever notice how Uncle Ephraim will persist in
coming to the table in his shirt sleeves?”
“Persist is hardly the word to use,” Morris replied,
smiling comically, as he readily understood Katy's misgivings.
“Persist would imply his having been often
remonstrated with for that breach of etiquette; whereas
I doubt whether the idea that it was not in strict accordance
with politeness was ever suggested to him.”
“May be not,” Katy answered. “It was never necessary
till now, and I feel so disturbed, for I want Mr. Cameron
to like him, and if he does that I am sure he won't.”
“Why do you think so?” Morris asked, and Katy replied,
“He is so particular, and was so very angry at a
little hotel between Lakes George and Champlain, where
we took our dinner before going on the boat. There was
a man along—a real good-natured man, too, so kind to
everybody—and, as the day was warm, he carried his coat
on his arm, and sat down to the table right opposite me.
Mr. Cameron was so indignant, and said such harsh things,
which the man heard I am sure, for he put on his coat
directly, and I saw him afterward on the boat, sweating
like rain, and looking so sorry, as if he had been guilty
of something wrong. I am sure, though, he had not?”
This last was spoken interrogatively, and Morris replied:
“There is nothing wrong or wicked in going without
one's coat. Everything depends upon the
-- 043 --
[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]
circumstances under which it is done. For me to appear at
table in my shirt-sleeves would be very rude, but for an
old man like Uncle Ephraim to do so is a very different
thing. Still, Mr. Cameron may see from another stand-point.
But I would not distress myself. That love is
not worth much which would think the less of you for
anything outré which Uncle Ephraim may do. If Mr.
Cameron cannot stand the test of seeing your relatives
as they are, he is not worth the long face you are wearing,”
and Morris pinched her cheek playfully.
“Yes, I know,” Katy replied, “but if you only could
manage Uncle Eph. I should be so glad.”
Morris had little hope of breaking a habit of years, but
he promised to try if an opportunity should occur, and
as Mrs. Hull, the housekeeper, had by this time gathered
up the articles required for the morrow, Morris took the
basket in his own hands and went with Katy across the
fields.
“God bless you, Katy, and may Mr. Cameron's visit
bring you as much happiness as you anticipate,” he said,
as he set her basket upon the door-step and turned back
without entering the house.
Katy noticed the peculiar tone of his voice, and again
there swept over her the same thrill she had felt when
Morris first said to her, “And did Katy like this Mr.
Cameron?” but so far was she from guessing the truth
that she only feared she might have displeased him by
what she had said of Uncle Ephraim. Perhaps she had
wronged him, she thought, and the good old man, resting
from his hard day's toil, in his accustomed chair, with
not only his coat, but his vest and boots cast aside, little
guessed what prompted the caresses which Katy lavished
upon him, sitting in his lap and parting his snowy hair,
as if thus she would make amends for any injury done.
Little Katy-did he called her, looking fondly into her
bright, pretty face, and thinking how terrible it would be
to see that face shadowed with pain and care. Somehow,
of late, Uncle Ephraim was always thinking of such a
calamity as more than possible for Katy, and when that
night she knelt beside him, his voice was full of pleading
earnestness as he prayed that God would keep them all
in safety, and bring to none of them more grief or pain
-- 044 -- p591-049
[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]
than was necessary to fit them for himself. And Katy,
listening to him, remembered the talk down in the
meadow, when she sat on the rock beneath the butternut
tree. But the world, while it held Wilford Cameron, as
he seemed to her now, was too full of joy for her to dread
what the future might have in store for her, and so she
arose from her knees, thinking only how long it would be
before to-morrow noon, wondering if Wilford would
surely be there next time their evening prayers were said,
and if he would notice Uncle Ephraim's shocking grammar!
CHAPTER V. WILFORD'S VISIT.
WILFORD had made the last change of cars, and
when he stopped again it would be at Silverton.
He did not expect any one to meet him, but
as he remembered the man whom he had seen
greeting Katy, he thought it not unlikely that he might
be there now, laughing to himself as he pictured his
mother's horror, could she see him riding along in the
corn-colored vehicle which Uncle Ephraim drove. But
that vehicle was safe at home beneath the shed, while Uncle
Ephraim was laying a stone wall upon the huckleberry
hill, and the handsome carriage waiting at Silverton depot
was certainly unexceptionable; while in the young
man who, as the train stopped and Wilford stepped out
upon the platform, came to meet him, asking if he were
Mr. Cameron, Wilford recognized the true gentleman,
and his spirits rose at once as Morris said to him, “I am
Miss Lennox's cousin, deputed by her to take charge of
you for a time.”
Wilford had heard of Dr. Morris Grant and of his
kindness to poor little Jamie, who died in Paris; he had
heard too that his proud sister Juno had tried her powers
of coquetry in vain upon the grave American; but he
-- 045 --
[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]
had no suspicion that his new acquaintance was the one
until Morris mentioned having met his family in France
and inquired after their welfare.
After that the conversation became very familiar, and
the ride seemed so short that Wilford was surprised when,
as they turned a corner in the sandy road, Morris pointed
to the farm-house, saying: “We are almost there—that
is the place.”
“That!” and Wilford's voice indicated his disappointment,
for in all his mental pictures of Katy Lennox's
home he had never imagined anything like this.
Large, rambling and weird-like, with something lofty
and imposing, just because it was so ancient, was the
house he had in his mind, and he could not conceal his
chagrin as his eye took in the small, low building, with
its high windows and tiny panes of glass, paintless and
blindless, standing there alone among the hills. Morris
understood it perfectly; but without seeming to notice it,
remarked, “It is the oldest house probably in the country,
and should be invaluable on that account. I think we
Americans are too fond of change and too much inclined
to throw aside all that reminds us of the past. Now I
like the farm-house just because it is old and unpretentious.”
“Yes, certainly,” Wilford answered, looking ruefully
around him at the stone wall, half tumbled down, the
tall well-sweep, and the patch of sun-flowers in the garden,
with Aunt Betsy bending behind them, picking tomatoes
for dinner, and shading her eyes with her hand
to look at him as he drove up.
It was all very rural, no doubt, and very charming to
people who liked it, but Wilford did not like it, and he
was wishing himself safely in New York when a golden
head flashed for an instant before the window and then
disappeared as Katy emerged into view, waiting at the
door to receive him and looking so sweetly in her dress of
white with the scarlet geranium blossoms in her hair that
Wilford forgot the homeliness of the surroundings, thinking
only of her and how soft and warm was the little hand
he held as she led him into the parlor. He did not know
she was so beautiful, he said to himself, and he feasted his
eyes upon her, forgetful for a time of all else. But
-- 046 --
[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]
afterwards, when Katy left him for a moment, he had time to
observe the well-worn carpet, the six cane-seated chairs,
the large stuffed rocking-chair, the fall-leaf table, with
its plain wool spread, and lastly the really expensive
piano, the only handsome piece of furniture the room contained,
and which he rightly guessed must have come
from Morris.
“What would Juno or Mark say?” he kept repeating
to himself half shuddering as he recalled the bantering
proposition to accompany him made by Mark Ray, the
only young man whom he considered fully his equal in
New York.
Wilford knew these feelings were unworthy of him,
and he tried to shake them off, listlessly turning over the
books upon the table—books which betokened in some
one both taste and talent of no low order.
“Mark's favorite,” he said, lifting up a volume of Schiller;
and turning to the fly-leaf he read, “Helen Lennox,
from Cousin Morris,” just as Katy returned with her sister,
whom she presented to the stranger.
Helen was prepared to like him because Katy did, and
her first thought was that he was very fine looking; but
when she met his cold, proud eyes, and knew how closely
he was scrutinizing her, there arose in her heart a feeling
of dislike which she could never wholly conquer. He was
very polite to her, but something in his manner annoyed
and irritated her, it was so cool, so condescending, as
if he endured her merely because she was Katy's sister,
nothing more.
“Rather pretty, more character than Katy, but odd and
self-willed, with no kind of style,” was Wilford's running
comment on Helen as he took her in from the plain arrangement
of her dark hair to the fit of her French calico
and the cut of her linen collar.
Fashionable dress would improve her very much, he
thought, turning with a feeling of relief to Katy, whom
nothing could disfigure, and who was now watching the
door eagerly for the entrance of her mother. That lady
had spent a good deal of time at her toilet, and she came
in at last, flurried, fidgety, and very red, both from exercise
and the bright-hued ribbons streaming from her cap
and sadly at variance with the color of the dress.
-- 047 --
[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]
Wilford noticed the discrepancy at once, and noticed too
how little style there was about the nervous woman greeting
him so deferentially, and evidently regarding him as
something infinitely superior to herself. Wilford had
looked with indifference on Helen, but it would take a
stronger word to express his opinion of the mother.
Morris, who remained to dinner, was in the parlor now,
and in his presence Wilford felt more at ease, more as if
he had found an affinity. Uncle Ephraim was not there,
having eaten his bowl of milk and gone back to his stone
wall, so that upon Morris devolved the duties of host, and
he courteously led the way to the little dining room, where
the table was loaded with the good things Aunt Hannah
had prepared, burning and browning her wrinkled face,
which nevertheless smiled pleasantly upon the stranger
presented as Mr. Cameron.
About Aunt Hannah there was something naturally lady
like, and Wilford recognized it at once; but when it came
to Aunt Betsy, of whom he had never heard, he felt for a
moment as if by being there in such promiscuous company
he had somehow fallen from the Camerons' high estate.
By way of pleasing the girls and doing honor to
their guest, Aunt Betsy had donned her very best attire,
wearing the slate-colored pongee dress, bought twenty
years before, and actually sporting a set of Helen's
cast-off hoops, which being too large for the dimensions
of her scanty skirt, gave her anything but the graceful
appearance she intended.
“Oh, auntie!” was Katy's involuntary exclamation,
while Helen bit her lip with vexation, for the hoop had
been an afterthought to Aunt Betsy just before going in
to dinner.
But the good old lady never dreamed of shocking anyone
with her attempts at fashion; and curtsying very
low to Mr. Cameron, she hoped for a better acquaintance,
and then took her seat at the table, just where each movement
could be distinctly seen by Wilford, scanning her so
intently as scarcely to hear the reverent words with which
Morris asked a blessing upon themselves and the food so
abundantly prepared. They could hardly have gotten
through that first dinner without Morris, who adroitly
led the conversation into channels which he knew would
-- 048 --
[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]
interest Mr. Cameron, and divert his mind from what was
passing around him, and so the dinner proceeded quietly
enough, Wilford discovering, ere its close, that Mrs. Lennox
had really some pretensions to a lady, while Helen's
dress and collar ceased to be obnoxious, as he watched
the play of her fine features and saw her eyes kindle as
she took a modest part in the conversation when it turned
on books and literature.
Meanwhile Katy kept very silent, but when, after dinner
was over and Morris was gone, she went with Wilford
down to the shore of the pond, her tongue was
loosed, and he found again the little fairy who had so
bewitched him a few weeks before. And yet there was a
load upon his heart, a shadow upon his brow, for he
knew now that between Katy's family and his there was
a social gulf which never could be crossed by either
party. He might bear Katy over, it was true, but would
she not look longingly back to her humble home, and
might he not sometimes be greatly chagrined by the sudden
appearing of some one of this low-bred family who
did not seem to realize how ignorant they were, or how far
below him in the social scale? Poor Wilford! he winced
and shivered when he thought of Aunt Betsy, in her
antiquated pongee, and remembered that she was a near
relative of the little maiden sporting so playfully around
him, stealing his heart away in spite of his family pride,
and making him more deeply in love than ever. It was
very pleasant down by the pond, and Wilford kept Katy
there until the sun was going down and they heard
in the distance the tinkle of a bell as the deacon's cows
plodded slowly homeward. Supper was waiting for
them, and with his appetite sharpened by his walk, Wilford
found no cause of complaint against Aunt Hannah's
viands, though he smiled mentally as he accepted the
piece of apple pie Aunt Betsy offered him, saying, by way
of recommendation, that “she made the crust but Catherine
peeled and sliced the apples.”
The deacon had not returned from his work, and Wilford
did not see him until he came suddenly upon him,
seated in the wood-shed door, resting after the labor of
the day. “The young man was welcome to Silverton,”
he said, “but he must excuse him from visitin' much that
-- 049 --
[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]
night, for the cows was to milk and the chores to do, as
he never kep' no boy.” The “chores” were done at last,
just as the clock pointed to half-past eight, the hour for
family worship. Unaccustomed as Wilford was to such
things, he felt the influence of the deacon's voice as he
read from the word of God, and involuntarily found himself
kneeling when Katy knelt, noticing the deacon's
grammar it is true, but still listening patiently to the
lengthy prayer, which included him together with the
rest of mankind.
There was no chance of seeing Katy alone, that night,
and so full two hours before his usual custom Wilford
retired to the little room to which the deacon conducted
him, saying, as he put down the lamp, “You'll find it
pretty snug quarters, I guess, for such a close, muggy
night as this.”
And truly they were snug quarters, Wilford thought,
as he surveyed the dimensions of the room; but there
was no alternative, and a few moments found him in the
centre of the two feather beds, neither Helen nor Katy
having discovered the addition made by Aunt Betsy, and
which came near being the death of the New York guest.
To sleep was impossible, and never for a moment did
Wilford lose his consciousness or forget to accuse himself
of being an idiot for coming into that heathenish neighborhood
after a wife when in New York there were so
many girls ready and waiting for him.
“I'll go back to-morrow morning,” he said, and striking
a match he consulted his Railway Guide to find when
the first train passed Silverton, feeling comforted to
know that only a few hours intervened between him and
freedom.
But alas for Wilford! He was but a man, subject to
man's caprices, and when next morning he met Katy
Lennox, looking in her light muslin as pure and fair as
the white blossoms twined in her wavy hair, his resolution
began to waver. Perhaps there was a decent hotel
in Silverton; he would inquire of Dr. Grant; at all events
he would not take the first train, though he might the
next; and so he staid, eating fried apples and beefsteak,
but forgetting to criticise, in his appreciation of the rich
thick cream poured into his coffee, and the sweet, golden
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[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]
butter, which melted in soft waves upon the flaky rolls.
Again Uncle Ephraim was absent, having gone to mill
before Wilford left his room, nor was he visible to the
young man until after dinner, for Wilford did not go
home, but drove instead with Katy in the carriage which
Morris sent round, excusing himself from coming on the
plea of being too busy, but saying he would join them at
tea, if possible. Wilford's mind was not yet fully made
up, so he concluded to remain another day and see more
of Katy's family. Accordingly, after dinner, he bent his
energies to cultivating them all, from Helen down to
Aunt Betsy, who proved the most transparent of the four.
Arrayed again in the pongee, but this time without the
hoop, she came into the parlor, bringing her calico patch-work,
which she informed him was pieced in the “herrin'
bone pattern” and intended for Katy; telling him further,
that the feather bed on which he slept was also a
part of “Catherine's setting out,” and was made from
feathers she picked herself, showing him as proof a mark
upon her arm, left there by the gray goose, which had
proved a little refractory when she tried to draw a stocking
over its head.
Wilford groaned, and Katy's chance for being Mrs.
Cameron was growing constantly less and less as he saw
more and more how vast was the difference between the
Barlows and himself. Helen, he acknowledged, was passable,
though she was not one whom he could ever introduce
into New York society; and he was wondering how
Katy chanced to be so unlike the rest, when Uncle
Ephraim came up from the meadow, and announced himself
as ready now to visit, apologizing for his apparent
neglect, and seeming so absolutely to believe that
his company was desirable, that Wilford felt amused,
wondering again what Juno, or even Mark Ray, would
think of the rough old man, sitting with his chair tipped
back against the wall, and going occasionally to the door
to relieve himself of his tobacco juico, for chewing was
one of the deacon's weaknesses. His pants were faultlessly
clean, and his vest was buttoned nearly up to his
throat, but his coat was hanging on a nail out by the
kitchen door, and, to Katy's distress and Wilford's horror,
he sat among them in his shirt sleeves, all unconscious
-- 051 --
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of harm or of the disquiet awakened in the bosom of the
young man, who on that point was foolishly fastidious,
and who showed by his face how much he was annoyed.
Not even the presence of Morris, who came about tea
time, was of any avail to lift the cloud from his brow, and
he seemed moody and silent until supper was announced.
This was the first opportunity Morris had had of trying
his powers of persuasion upon the deacon, and now, at a
hint from Katy, he said to him in an aside, as they were
passing into the dining room: “Suppose, Uncle Ephraim,
you put on your coat for once. It is better than coming
to the table so.”
“Pooh,” was Uncle Ephraim's innocent rejoinder,
spoken loudly enough for Wilford to hear, “I shan't catch
cold, for I am used to it; besides that, I never could
stand the racket this hot weather.”
In his simplicity he did not even suspect Morris's motive,
but imputed it wholly to concern for his health.
And so Wilford Cameron found himself seated next to a
man who willfully trampled upon all rules of etiquette,
shocking him in his most sensitive points, and making
him thoroughly disgusted with the country and country
people generally. All but Morris and Katy—he did
make an exception in their favor, leaning most to Morris,
whom he admired more and more, as he became better
acquainted with him, wondering how he could content
himself to settle down quietly in Silverton, when he
would surely die if compelled to live there for a week.
Something like this he said to Dr. Grant, when that evening
they sat together in the handsome parlor at Linwood,
for Morris kindly invited him to spend the night
with him.
“I stay in Silverton, first, because I think I can do more
good here than elsewhere, and secondly, because I really
like the country and the country people; for, strange and
uncouth as they may seem to you, who never lived
among them, they have kinder, truer hearts beating beneath
their rough exteriors, than are often found in the
city.”
This was Morris's reply, and in the conversation which
ensued Wilford Cameron caught glimpses of a nobler,
higher phase of manhood than he had thought existed,
-- 052 --
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feeling an unbounded respect for one who, because he
believed it to be his duty, was, as it seemed to him,
wasting his life among people who could not appreciate
his character, though they might idolize the man. But
this did not reconcile Wilford one whit the more to
Silverton. Uncle Ephraim had completed the work commenced
by the two feather beds, and at breakfast, next
morning, he announced his intention of returning to New
York that day. To this Morris offered no objection, but
asked to be remembered to the mother and sisters, and
then invited Wilford to stop altogether at Linwood when
he came again to Silverton.
“Thank you; but it is hardly probable that I shall be
here very soon,” Wilford replied, adding, as he met the
peculiar glance of Morris's eye, “I found Miss Katy a
delightful traveling acquaintance, and on my way from
Newport thought I would renew it and see a little of
rustic life.”
Poor Katy! how her heart would have ached could she
have heard those words and understood their meaning,
just as Morris did, feeling a rising indignation for the
man with whom he could not be absolutely angry, he was
so self-possessed, so pleasant and gentlemanly, while better
than all, was he not virtually giving Katy up? and if
he did might she not turn at last to him?
These were Morris's thoughts as he walked with Wilford
across the fields to the farm-house, where Katy
met them with her sunniest smile, singing to them, at
Wilford's request, her sweetest song, and making him
half wish he could revoke his hasty decision and tarry a
little longer. But it was now too late for that, the carriage
which would take him to the depot was already on
its way from Linwood; and when the song was ended
he told her of his intentions to leave on the next train,
feeling a pang when he saw how the blood left her cheek
and lip, and then came surging back as she said timidly,
“Why need you leave so soon?”
“I have already outstayed my time. I thought of
going yesterday, and my partner, Mr. Ray, will be expecting
me,” Wilford replied, laying his hand upon
Katy's hair, while Morris and Helen stole quietly from
the room.
-- 053 --
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Thus left to himself, Wilford continued, “Maybe I'll
come again sometime. Would you like to have me?”
“Yes,” and Katy's blue eyes were lifted pleadingly
to the young man, who had never loved her so well as at
that very moment when resolving to cast her off.
For a moment Wilford was strongly tempted to throw
all pride aside, and ask that young girl to be his; but
thoughts of his mother, of Juno and Bell, and more than
all, thoughts of Uncle Ephraim and his sister Betsy,
arose in time to prevent it, and so he only kissed her
forehead caressingly as he said good-bye, telling her
that he should not soon forget his visit to Silverton, and
then, as the carriage drove up, going out to where the
remainder of the family were standing together and
commenting upon his sudden departure.
It was not sudden, he said, trying to explain. He
really had thought seriously of going yesterday, and
feeling that he had something to atone for, he tried to
be unusually gracious as he shook their hands, thanking
them for their kindness, but seeming wholly oblivious
to Aunt Betsy's remark that “she hoped to see him
again, if not at Silverton, in New York, where she
wanted dreadfully to visit, but never had on account of
the 'bominable prices charged to the taverns, and she
hadn't no acquaintances there.”
This was Aunt Betsy's parting remark, and, after
Katy, Aunt Betsy liked Wilford Cameron better than
any one of the group which watched him as he drove
from their door. Aunt Hannah thought him too much
stuck up for farmers' folks; Mrs. Lennox, whose ambition
would have accounted him a most desirable match
for her daughter, could not deny that his manner towards
them, though polite in the extreme, was that of a
superior to people greatly beneath him; while Helen,
who saw clearer than the rest, read him aright, and detected
the struggle between his pride and his love for
poor little Katy, whom she found sitting on the floor,
just where Wilford left her standing, her head resting
on the chair and her face hidden in her hands as she
sobbed quietly, hardly knowing why she cried or what
to answer when Helen asked what was the matter.
-- 054 -- p591-059
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“It was so queer in him to go so soon,” she said;
“just as if he were offended about something.”
“Never mind, Katy,” Helen said, soothingly. “If he
cares for you he will come back again. He could not
stay here always, of course; and I must say I respect
him for attending to his business, if he has any. He has
been gone from home for weeks, you know.”
This was Helen's reasoning; but it did not comfort
Katy, whose face looked white and sad, as she moved
listlessly about the house, almost crying again when she
heard in the distance the whistle of the train which was
to carry Wilford Cameron away and end his first visit
to Silverton.
CHAPTER VI. IN THE SPRING.
KATY LENNOX had been very sick, and the bed
where Wilford slept had stood in the parlor during
the long weeks while the obstinate fever ran
its course; but she was better now, and sat
nearly all day before the fire, sometimes trying to crochet
a little, and again turning over the books which Morris
had bought to interest her—Morris, the kind physician,
who had attended her so faithfully, never leaving her
while the fever was at its height, unless it was necessary,
but staying with her day and night, watching her symptoms
carefully, and praying so earnestly that she might
not die, not, at least, until some token had been given
that again in the better world he should find her, where
partings were unknown and where no Wilford Camerons
could contest the prize with him. Not that he was
greatly afraid of Wilford now; that fear had mostly died
away just as the hope had died from Katy's heart that
she would ever meet him again.
Since the September morning when he left her, she
-- 055 --
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had not heard from him except once, when in the winter
Morris had been to New York, and having a few hours'
leisure on his hands had called at Wilford's office, receiving
a most cordial reception, and meeting with Mark Ray,
who impressed him as a man quite as highly cultivated
as Wilford, and possessed of more character and principle.
This call was not altogether of Morris's seeking,
but was made rather with a view to pleasing Katy, who,
when she learned that he was going to New York, had
said inadvertently, “Oh, I do so hope you'll meet with
Mr. Cameron, for then we shall know that he is neither
sick nor dead, as I have sometimes feared.”
And so Morris had sought his rival, feeling repaid for
the effort it had cost him, when he saw how glad Wilford
seemed to meet him. The first commonplaces over, Wilford
inquired for Katy. Was she well, and how was she
occupying her time this winter?
“Both Helen and Katy are pupils of mine,” Morris replied,
“reciting their lessons to me every day when the
weather will admit of their crossing the fields to Linwood.
We have often wondered what had become of
you, that you did not even let us know of your safe arrival
home,” he added, looking Wilford fully in the eye,
and rather enjoying his confusion as he tried to apologize.
He had intended writing, but an unusual amount of
business had occupied his time. “Mark will tell you
how busy I was,” and he turned appealingly fo his partner,
in whose expressive eyes Morris read that Silverton was
not unknown to him.
But if Wilford had told him anything derogatory of
the farm-house or its inmates, it did not appear in Mr.
Ray's manner, as he replied that Mr. Cameron had been
very busy ever since his return from Silverton, adding,
“From what Cameron tells me of your neighborhood,
there must be some splendid hunting and fishing there,
and I had last fall half a mind to try it.”
This time there was something comical in the eyes
turned so mischievously upon Wilford, who colored scarlet
for an instant, but soon recovered his composure, and
invited Morris home with him to dinner.
“I shall not take a refusal,” he said, as Morris began to
-- 056 --
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decline. “Mother and the young ladies will be delighted
to see you again. Mark will go with us, of course.”
There was something so hearty in Wilford's invitation
that Morris did not again object, and two hours later
found him in the drawing room at No.—Fifth Avenue,
receiving the friendly greetings of Mrs. Cameron and
her daughter, each of whom vied with the other in their
polite attentions to him.
Morris did not regret having accepted Wilford's invitation
to dinner, as by this means he saw the home which
had well nigh been little Katy Lennox's. She would be
sadly out of place here with these people, he thought, as
he looked upon all their formality and ceremony, and
then contrasted it with what Katy had been accustomed
to. Juno would kill her outright, was his next mental
comment, as he watched that haughty young lady, dividing
her coquetries between himself and Mr. Ray, who
being every way desirable, both in point of family and
wealth, was evidently her favorite. She had colored
scarlet when first presented to Dr. Grant, and her voice
had trembled as she took his offered hand, for she remembered
the time when her liking had not been concealed,
and was only withdrawn at the last because she
found how useless it was to waste her affections upon
one who did not prize them.
When Wilford first returned from Silverton he had, as
a sure means of forgetting Katy, told his mother and
sisters something of the farm-house and its inmates; and
Juno, while ridiculing both Helen and Katy, had felt a
fierce pang of jealousy in knowing they were cousins to
Morris Grant, who lived so near that he could, if he liked,
see them every day. In Paris Juno had suspected that
somebody was standing between her and Dr. Grant, and
with the quick insight of a smart, bright woman, she
guessed that it was one of these cousins—Katy most likely,
her brother having described Helen as very common
place,—and for a time she had hated poor, innocent Katy
most cordially for having come between her and the only
man for whom she had ever really cared. Gradually, however,
the feeling died away, but was revived again at sight
of Morris Grant, and at the table she could not forbear
saying to him,
-- 057 --
[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]
“By the way, Dr. Grant, why did you never tell us of
those charming cousins, when you were in Paris?
Brother Will describes one of them as a little water-lily,
she is so fair and pretty. Katy, I think, is her name.
Wilford, isn't it Katy Lennox whom you think so beautiful,
and with whom you are more than half in love?”
“Yes, it is Katy,” and Wilford spoke sternly, for he
did not like Juno's bantering tone, but he could not stop
her, and she went on,
“Are they your own cousins, Dr. Grant?”
“No, they are removed from me two or three degrees,
their father having been only my second cousin.”
The fact that Katy Lennox was not nearly enough
related to Dr. Grant to prevent his marrying her if he
liked, did not improve Juno's amiability, and she continued
to ask questions concerning both Katy and Helen,
the latter of whom she persisted in thinking was strong-minded,
until Mark Ray came to the rescue, diverting
her attention by adroitly complimenting her in some
way, and so relieving Wilford and Morris, both of whom
were exceedingly annoyed.
“When Will visits Silverton again I mean to go with
him,” she said to Morris at parting, but he did not tell
her that such an event would give him the greatest
pleasure. On the contrary, he merely replied,
“If you do you will find plenty of room at Linwood
for those four trunks which I remember seeing in Paris,
and your brother will tell you whether I am a hospitable
host or not.”
Biting her lip with chagrin, Juno went back to the
drawing room, while Morris returned to his hotel,
accompanied by Wilford, who passed the entire evening
with him, appearing somewhat constrained, as if there
was something on his mind which he wished to say; but
it remained unspoken, and there was no allusion to Silverton
until, as Wilford was leaving, he said,
“Remember me kindly to the Silverton friends, and
say I have not forgotten them.”
And this was all there was to carry back to Katy, who
on the afternoon of Morris's return from New York was
at Linwood, waiting to pour his tea and make his toast,
she pretended, though the real reason was shining all
-- 058 --
[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]
over her tell-tale face, which grew so bright and eager
when Morris said,
“I dined at Mr. Cameron's, Kitty.”
But the brightness gradually faded as Morris described
his call and then repeated Wilford's message.
“And that was all,” Katy whispered sorrowfully as
she beat the damask cloth softly with her fingers, shutting
her lips tightly together to keep back her disappointment.
When Morris glanced at her again there was a tear on
her long eye-lashes, and it dropped upon her cheek, followed
by another and another, but he did not seem to
see it, and talked of New York and the fine sights in
Broadway until Katy was able to take part in the conversation.
“Please don't tell Helen that you saw Wilford,” she
said to Morris as he walked home with her after tea, and
that was the only allusion she made to it, never after that
mentioning Wilford's name or giving any token of the
love still so strong within her heart, and waiting only for
some slight token to waken it again to life and vigor.
This was in the winter, and Katy had been very sick
since then, while Morris had come to believe that Wilford
was forgotten, and when, as she grew stronger, he
saw how her eyes sparkled at his coming, and how impatient
she seemed if he was obliged to hurry off, hope
whispered that she would surely be his, and his usually
grave face wore a look of happiness which his patients
noticed, feeling themselves better after one of his cheery
visits. Poor Morris! he was little prepared for the terrible
blow in store for him, when one day early in April
he started, as usual, to visit Katy, saying to himself, “If
I find her alone, perhaps I'll ask if she will come to Linwood
this summer;” and Morris paused a moment beneath
a beechwood tree to still the throbbings of his
heart, which beat so fast as he thought of going home
from his weary work and finding Katy there, his little
wife—whom he might caress and love all his affectionate
nature would prompt him to. He knew that in some
points she was weak, but then she was very young, and
there was about her so much of purity, innocence, and
perfect beauty, that few men, however strong their
-- 059 --
[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]
intellect, could withstand her, and Morris felt that in possessing
her he should have all he needed to make this
life desirable. She would improve as she grew older,
and it would be a most delightful task to train her into
what she was capable of becoming. Alas for Dr. Morris!
He was very near the farm-house now, and there were
only a few minutes between him and the cloud which
would darken his horizon so completely. Katy was
alone, sitting up in her pretty dressing gown of blue,
which was so becoming to her pure complexion. Her
hair, which had been all cut away during her long sickness,
was growing out again somewhat darker than before,
and lay in rings upon her head, making her look
more childish than ever. But to this Morris did not object.
He liked to have her a child, and he thought he
had never seen her so beautiful as she was this morning,
when, with glowing cheek and dancing eyes, she greeted
him as he came in,
“Oh, Dr. Morris!” she began, holding up a letter she
had in her hand, “I am so glad you've come! Wilford has
not forgotten me. He has written, and he is coming
again, if I will let him; I am so glad! Ain't you? Seeing
you knew all about it, and never told Helen, I'll let
you read the letter.”
And she held it toward the young man leaning against
the mantel and panting for the breath which came so
heavily.
Something he said apologetically about being snow
blind, for there was that day quite a fall of soft spring
snow; and then, with a mighty effort which made his
heart quiver with pain, Morris was himself once more,
and took the letter in his hand.
“Perhaps I ought not to read it,” he said, but Katy
insisted, and thinking to himself, “It will cure me sooner
perhaps,” he read the few lines Wilford Cameron had
written to his “dear little Katy.”
That was the way he addressed her, going on to say
that circumstances which he could not explain to her had
kept him silent ever since he left her the previous autumn;
but through all he never for a moment had forgotten
her, thinking of her the more for the silence he
had maintained. “And now that I have risen above the
-- 060 --
[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]
circumstances,” he added, in conclusion, “I write to ask
if I may come to Silverton again? If I may, just drop me
one word, `come,' and in less than a week I shall be there.
Yours very truly, W. Cameron.”
Morris read the letter through, feeling that every word
was separating him further and further from Katy, to
whom he said, “You will answer this?”
“Yes, oh yes; perhaps to-day.”
“And you will tell him to come?”
“Why,—what else should I tell him?” and Katy's
blue eyes looked wonderingly at Morris, who hardly
knew what he was doing, or why he said to her next,
“Listen to me, Katy. You know why Wilford Cameron
comes here a second time, and what he will probably ask
you ere he goes away: but, Katy, you are not strong
enough yet to see him under so exciting circumstances,
and, as your physician, I desire that you tell him to wait
at least three weeks before he comes. Will you do so,
Katy?”
“That is just as Helen talked,” Katy answered mournfully.
“She said I was not able.”
“And will you heed us?” Morris asked again, while
Katy after a moment consented, and glad of this respite
from what he knew to a certainty would be, Morris dealt
out her medicine, and for an instant felt her rapid pulse,
but did not retain her hand within his own, nor lay his
other upon her head, as he had sometimes done.
He could not do that now, and so he hurried away,
finding the world into which he went far different from
what it had seemed an hour ago. Then all was bright
and hopeful; but now, alas! a darker night was gathering
round him than any he had ever known, and the
patients visited that day marveled at the whiteness of
his face, asking if he were ill. Yes, he answered them
truly, and for two days he was not seen again, but remained
at home alone, where none but his God was witness
to what he suffered; but when the third day came
he went again among his sick, grave, quiet and unchanged
in outward appearance, unless it was that his
voice, always so kind, had now a kinder tone and his
manner was tenderer, more sympathizing. Inwardly,
however, there was a change, for Morris Grant had lain
-- 061 --
[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]
himself upon the sacrificial altar, willing to be and to
endure whatever God should appoint, knowing that all
would eventually be for his good. To the farm-house he
went every day, talking most with Helen now, but never
forgetting who it was sitting so demurely in the arm-chair,
or flitting about the room, for Katy was gaining
rapidly. Love perhaps had had nothing to do with her
dangerous illness, but it had much to do with her recovery,
and those not in the secret wondered to see how
she improved, her cheeks growing round and full and
her eyes shining with returning health and happiness.
At Helen's instigation Katy had deferred Wilford's
visit four weeks instead of three, but in that time there
had come two letters from him, so full of anxiety and
sympathy for “his poor little Katy who had been so
sick,” that even Helen began to think that he was not as
proud and heartless as she supposed, and that he did
love her sister after all.
“If I supposed he meant to deceive her I should wish
I was a man to cowhide him,” she said to herself, with
flashing eye, as she heard Katy exulting that he was
coming “to-morrow.”
This time he would stop at Linwood, for Katy had
asked Morris if he might, while Morris had told her yes,
feeling his heart-wound throb afresh, as he thought how
hard it would be to entertain his rival. Of himself Morris
could do nothing, but with the help he never sought
in vain he could doall things, and so he gave orders that
the best chamber should be prepared for his guest, bidding
Mrs. Hull see that no pains were spared for his
entertainment, and then with Katy he waited for the day,
the last one in April, which would bring Wilford Cameron
asecon time to Silverton.
-- 062 -- p591-067
CHAPTER VII. WILFORD'S SECOND VISIT.
[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]
WLFORD CAMERON had tried to forget Katy
Lennox, both for his sake and her own, for he foresaw
that she could not be happy with his family,
and he came to think it might be a wrong to her to
transplant her into a soil so wholly unlike that in which
her habits and affections had taken root.
His father once had abruptly asked him if there was any
truth in the report that he was about to marry and make
a fool of himself, and when Wilford had answered “No,”
he had replied with a significant.
“Umph! Old enough, I should think, if you ever intend
to marry. Wilford,” and the old man faced square
about, “I know nothing of the girl, except what I
gathered from your mother and sisters. You have not
asked my advice. I don't suppose you want it, but if you
do, here it is. If you love the girl and she is respectable,
marry her if she is poor as poverty and the daughter of
a tinker; but if you don't love her, and she's as rich as a
nabob, for thunder's sake keep away from her.”
This was the elder Cameron's counsel, and Katy's cause
rose fifty per cent. in consequence. Still Wilford was
sadly disquieted, so much so that his partner, Mark Ray,
could not fail to observe that something was troubling
him, and at last frankly asked what it was. Wilford
knew he could trust Mark, and he confessed the whole,
telling him far more of Silverton than he had told his
mother, and then asking what his friend would do were
the case his own.
Fond of fun and frolic, Mark laughed immoderately at
Wilford's description of Aunt Betsy bringing her “herrin'-bone”
patch work into the parlor, and telling him it
was a part of Katy's “settin' out,” but when it came to
her hint for an invitation to visit New York, the amused
young man roared with laughter, wishing so much
that he might live to see the day when poor Aunt Betsy
Barlow stood ringing for admittance at No. — Fifth
Avenue.
-- 063 --
[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]
“Wouldn't it be rich, though, the meeting between
your Aunt Betsy and Juno?” and the tears fairly poured
down the young man's face.
But Wilford was too serious for trifling, and after his
merriment had subsided, Mark talked with him candidly
of Katy Lennox, whose cause he warmly espoused, telling
Wilford that he was far too sensitive with regard to family
and position.
“You are a good fellow on the whole, but too outrageously
proud,” he said. “Of course this Aunt Betsy in
her pongee, whatever that may be, and the uncle in his
shirt sleeves, and this mother whom you describe as weak
and ambitious, are objections which you would rather
should not exist; but if you love the girl, take her, family
and all. Not that you are to transport the whole colony
of Barlows to New York,” he added, as he saw Wilford's
look of horror, “but make up your mind to endure what
cannot be helped, resting yourself upon the fact that your
position is such as cannot well be affected by any marriage
you might make, provided the wife were right.”
This was Mark Ray's advice, and it had great weight
with Wilford, who knew that Mark came, if possible, from
a better line of ancestry than himself. And still Wilford
hesitated, waiting until the winter, was over before he
came to the decision which, when it was reached, was firm
as a granite rock. He had made up his mind at last to
marry Katy Lennox if she would accept him, and he told
his mother so in presence of his sisters, when one evening
they were all kept at home by the rain. There was a
sudden uplifting of Bell's eyelashes, a contemptuous
shrug of her shoulders, and then she went on with the
book she was reading, wondering if Katy was at all inclined
to literature, and thinking if she were that it might
be easier to tolerate her. Juno, who was expected to say
the sharpest things, turned upon him with the exclamation,
“If you can stand those two feather beds, you can do
more than I supposed,” and as one means of showing her
disapproval, she quitted the room, while Bell, who had
taken to writing articles on the follies of the age, soon
followed her sister to elaborate an idea suggested to her
mind by her brother's contemplated marriage.
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[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]
Thus left alone with her son, Mrs. Cameron tried all
her powers of persuasion upon him. But nothing she
said influenced him in the least, seeing which she suddenly
confronted him with the question, “Shall you tell
her all? A husband should have no secrets of that kind
from his wife.”
Wilford's face was white as ashes, and his voice trembled
as he replied, “Yes, mother, I shall tell her all;
but, oh! you do not know how hard it has been for me
to bring my mind to that, or how sorry I am that we ever
kept that secret—when Genevra died—”
“Hush-h!” came warningly from the mother as Juno
reappeared, the warning indicating that Genevra was a
name never mentioned, except by mother and son.
As Juno remained, the conversation was not resumed,
and the next morning Wilford wrote to Katy Lennox the
letter which carried to her so much of joy, and to Dr.
Grant so much of grief. To wait four weeks, as Katy
said he must, was a terrible trial to Wilford, who counted
every moment which kept him from her side. It was all
owing to Dr. Grant and that perpendicular Helen, he
knew, for Katy in her letter had admitted that the waiting
was wholly their suggestion; and Wilford's thoughts
concerning them were anything but complimentary, until
a new idea was suggested, which drove every other consideration
from his mind.
Wilford was naturally jealous, but that fault had once
led him into so deep a trouble that he had struggled to
overcome it, and now, at its first approach, after he
thought it dead, he tried to shake it off—tried not to believe
that Morris cared especially for Katy. But the
mere possibility was unendurable, and in a most feverish
state of excitement he started again for Silverton.
As before, Morris was at the station, his cordial greeting
and friendly manner disarming him from all anxiety
in that quarter, and making him resolve anew to trample
the demon jealousy under his feet, where it could never
rise again. Katy's life should not be darkened by the
green monster, he thought, and her future would have
been bright indeed had it proved all that he pictured it
as he drove along with Morris in the direction of the
farm-house.
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Katy was waiting for him, and he did not hesitate to
kiss her more than once as he kept her for a moment in
his arms, and then held her off to see if her illness had
left any traces upon her. It had not, except it were in
the increased delicacy of her complexion and the short
hair now growing out in silky rings. She was very
pretty in her short hair, but Wilford felt a little impatient
as he saw how childish it made her look, and
thought how long it would take for it to attain its former
length. He was already appropriating her to himself,
and devising ways of improving her. In New York,
with Morris Grant standing before his jealous gaze, he
could see no fault in Katy, and even now, with her beside
him, and the ogre jealousy gone, he saw no fault in
her; it was only her hair, and that would be remedied
in time; otherwise she was perfect, and in his delight at
meeting her again he forgot to criticise the farm-house
and its occupants, as he had done before.
They were very civil to him—the mother overwhelmingly
so, and Wilford could not help detecting her anxiety
that all should be settled this time. Helen, on the
contrary, was unusually cool, confirming him in his opinion
that she was strong-minded and self-willed, and making
him resolve to remove Katy as soon as possible from
her influence. When talking with his mother he had
said that if Katy told him “yes,” he should probably
place her at some fashionable school for a year or two;
but on the way to Silverton he had changed his mind.
He could not wait a year, and if he married Katy at all,
it should be immediately. He would then take her to
Europe, where she could have the best of teachers, besides
the advantage of traveling; and it was a very satisfactory
picture he drew of the woman whom he should
introduce into New York society as his wife, Mrs. Wilford
Cameron. It is true that Katy had not yet said the all-important
word, but she was going to say it, and when
late that afternoon they came from the walk he had asked
her to take, she had listened to his tale of love and was
his promised wife. Katy was no coquette; whatever she
felt she expressed, and she had frankly confessed to
Wilford her love for him, telling him how the fear that he
had forgotten her had haunted her all the long winter;
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and then with her clear, truthful blue eyes looking into
his, asking him why he had not sent her some message if,
as he said, he loved her all the time.
For a moment Wilford's lip was compressed and a flush
overspread his face, as, drawing her closer to him, he replied,
“My little Katy will remember that in my first
note I spoke of certain circumstances which had prevented
my writing earlier. I do not know that I asked
her not to seek to know those circumstances; but I ask
it now. Will Katy trust me so far as to believe that all
is right between us, and never allude to these circumstances?”
He was kissing her fondly, and his voice was so winning
that Katy promised, and then came the hardest, the
trying to tell her all, as he had said to his mother he
would. Twice he essayed to speak, and as often something
sealed his lips, until at last he began, “You must
not think me perfect, Katy, for I have faults, and perhaps
if you knew my past life you would wish to revoke your
recent decision and render a different verdict to my suit.
Suppose I unfold the blackest leaf for your inspection?”
“No, no, oh no,” and Katy playfully stopped his
mouth with her hand. “Of course you have some faults,
but I would rather find them out by myself. I could
not hear anything against you now. I am satisfied to
take you as you are.”
Wilford felt his heart throb wildly with the feeling
that he was deceiving the young girl; but if she would
not suffer him to tell her, he was not to be censured if
she remained in ignorance. And so the golden moment
fled, and when he spoke again he said, “If Katy will not
now read the leaf I offered to show her, she must not
shrink in horror, if ever it does meet her eye.”
“I won't, I promise,” Katy answered, a vague feeling
of fear creeping over her as to what the reading of that
mysterious page involved. But this was soon forgotten,
as Wilford, remembering his suspicions of Dr. Grant,
thought to probe her a little by asking if she had ever
loved any one before himself.
“No, never,” she answered. “I never dreamed of
such a thing until I saw you, Mr. Cameron;” and Wilford
believed the trusting girl, whose loving nature shone
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in every lineament of her face, upturned to receive the
kisses he pressed upon it, resolving within himself to be
to her what he ought to be.
“By the way,” he continued, “don't call me Mr. Cameron
again, as you did just now. I would rather be your
Wilford. It sounds more familiar;” and then he told her
of his projected tour to Europe, and Katy felt her pulses
quicken as she thought of London, Paris and Rome, as
places which her plain country eyes might yet look upon.
But when it came to their marriage, which Wilford said
must be within a few weeks—she demurred, for this arrangement
was not in accordance with her desires; and
she opposed her lover with all her strength, telling him
she was so young, not eighteen till July, and she knew
so little of housekeeping. He must let her stay at
home until she learned at least the art of making
bread!
Poor, ignorant Katy! Wilford could not forbear a
smile as he thought how different were her views from
his, and tried to explain that the art of bread-making,
though very desirable in most wives, was not an essential
accomplishment for his. Servants would do that; besides
he did not intend to have a house of his own at
once; he should take her first to live with his mother,
where she could learn what was necessary much better
than in Silverton.
Wilford Cameron expected to be obeyed in every important
matter by the happy person who should be his
wife, and as he possessed the faculty of enforcing perfect
obedience without seeming to be severe, so he silenced
Katy's arguments, and when they left the shadow of the
butternut tree she knew that in all human probability
six weeks' time would find her on the broad ocean alone
with Wilford Cameron. So perfect was Katy's faith and
love that she had no fear of Wilford now, but as his affianced
wife walked confidently by his side, feeling fully
his equal, nor once dreaming how great the disparity his
city friends would discover between the fastidious man
of fashion and the unsophisticated country girl. And
Wilford did not seek to enlighten her, but suffered her
to talk of the delight it would be to live in New York,
and how pleasant for mother and Helen to visit her,
-- 068 --
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especially the latter, who would thus have a chance to
see something of the world.
“When I get a house of my own I mean she shall live
with me all the while,” she said, stooping to gather a tuft
of wild blue-bells growing in a marshy spot.
Wilford winced a little, but he would not so soon tear
down Katy's castles, and so he merely remarked, as she
asked if it would not be nice to have Helen with them,
“Yes, very nice; but do not speak of it to her yet, as
it will probably be some time before she will come to us.”
And so Helen never suspected the honor in store for her
as she stood in the doorway anxiously waiting for her
sister, who she feared would take cold from being out so
long. Something though in Katy's face made her guess
that to her was lost forever the bright little sister whom
she loved so dearly, and fleeing up the narrow stairway
to her room she wept bitterly as she thought of the coming
time when she would occupy that room alone, and
know that never again would a little golden head lie
upon her neck just as it had lain, for there would be a
new love, a new interest between them, a love for the
man whose voice she could hear now talking to her
mother in the peculiar tone he always assumed when
speaking to any one of them excepting Morris or Katy.
“I wish it were not wrong to hate him,” she exclaimed
passionately; “it would be such a relief; but if he is
only kind to Katy, I do not care how much he despises
us,” and bathing her face, Helen sat down by her window,
wondering, if Mr. Cameron took her sister, when
it would probably be. “Not this year or more,” she said,
“for Katy is so young;” but on this point she was soon set
right by Katy herself, who, leaving her lover alone with
her mother, stole up to tell her sister the good news.
“Yes, I know; I guessed as much when you came
back from the meadows,” and Helen's voice was very unsteady
in its tone as she smoothed the soft rings clustering
around her sister's brow.
“Crying, Helen! oh, don't. I shall love you just the
same, and you are coming to live with us,” Katy said, forgetting
Wilford's instructions in her desire to comfort
Helen, who broke down again, while Katy's tears were
mingled with her own.
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It was the first time Katy had thought what it would
be to leave forever the good, patient sister, who had been
so kind, treating her like a petted kitten and standing
between her and every hardship.
“Don't cry, Nellie,” she said, “New York is not far
away, and I shall come so often, that is, after we return
from Europe. Did I tell you we are going there first,
and Wilford will not wait, but says we must be married
the 10th of June?—that's his birthday—thirty—and he is
telling mother now.”
“So soon—oh Katy! and you so young!” was all Helen
could say, as with quivering lip she kissed her sister's
hand raised to wipe her tears away.
“Yes, it is soon, and I am young: but Wilford is in
such a hurry; he don't care,” Katy replied, trying to
comfort Helen, and begging of her not to cry so hard.
No, Wilford did not care how much he wrung the
hearts of Katy's family by taking her from them at once,
and by dictating to a certain extent the way in which he
would take her. There must be no invited guests, he
said; no lookers-on, except such as chose to go to the
church where the ceremony would be performed, and
from which place he should go directly to the Boston train.
It was his wish, too, that the matter should be kept as
quiet as possible, and not be generally discussed in the
neighborhood, as he disliked being a subject for gossip.
And Mrs. Lennox, to whom this was said, promised
compliance with everything, or if she ventured to object
she found herself borne down by a stronger will than her
own, and weakly yielded, her manner fully testifying to
her delight at the honor conferred upon her by this high
marriage of her child. Wilford knew just how pleased
she was, and her obsequious manner annoyed him far
more than Helen's blunt straightforwardness, when, after
supper was over, she told him how averse she was to
his taking Katy so soon, adding still further that if it
must be, she saw no harm in inviting a few of their neighbors.
It was customary, it would be expected, she said,
while Mrs. Lennox, emboldened by Helen's boldness,
chimed in, “at least your folks will come; I shall be glad
to meet your mother.”
Wilford was very polite to them both; very
-- 070 --
[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]
good-humored, but he kept to his first position, and poor Mrs.
Lennox saw fade into airy nothingness all her visions of
roasted fowls and frosted cake trimmed with myrtle and
flowers, with hosts of the Silverton people there to admire
and partake of the marriage feast. It was too bad,
and so Aunt Betsy said, when, after Wilford had gone to
Linwood, the family sat together around the kitchen
stove, talking the matter over.
“Yes, it was too bad, when there was that white henturkey
she could fat up so easy before June, and she
knew how to make 'lection cake that would melt in your
mouth, and was enough sight better than the black stuff
they called weddin' cake. She meant to try what she
could do with Mr. Carmon.”
And next morning when he came again she did try,
holding out as inducements why he should be married
the night before starting for Boston, the “white henturkey,
the 'lection cake, and the gay old times the
young folks would have playing snap-and-catchem; or
if they had a mind, they could dance a bit in the kitchen.
She didn't believe in it, to be sure—none of the Orthodox
did; but as Wilford was a 'Piscopal, and that was a
'Piscopal quirk, it wouldn't harm for once.”
Wilford tried not to show his disgust, and only Helen
suspected how hard it was for him to keep down his
utter contempt. She saw it in his eyes, which resembled
two smouldering volcanoes as they rested upon
Aunt Betsy during her harangue.
“Thank you, madam, for your good intentions, but I
think we will dispense with the turkey and the cake,”
was all he said, though he did smile at the old lady's
definition of dancing, which for once she might allow.
Even Morris, when appealed to, decided with Wilford
against Mrs. Lennox and Aunt Betsy, knowing how unequal
he was to the task which would devolve on him in
case of a bridal party at the farm-house. In comparative
silence he heard from Wilford of his engagement,
offering no objection when told how soon the marriage
would take place, but congratulating him so quietly,
that if Wilford had retained a feeling of jealousy, it
would have disappeared; Morris was so seemingly indifferent
to everything except Katy's happiness. But
-- 071 -- p591-076
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Wilford did not observe closely, and failed to detect the
hopeless look in Morris's eyes, or the whiteness which
settled about his mouth as he fulfilled the duties of host
and sought to entertain his guest. Those were dark
hours for Morris Grant, and he was glad when at the
end of the second day Wilford's visit expired, and he
saw him driven from Linwood round to the farm-house,
where he would say his parting words to Katy and then
go back to New York.
CHAPTER VIII. GETTING READY TO BE MARRIED.
MISS HELEN LENNOX, Silverton, Mass.”
This was the superscription of a letter, postmarked
New York, and brought to Helen within
a week after Wilford's departure. It was his handwriting,
too; and wondering what he could have written to
her, Helen broke the seal, starting as there dropped into
her lap a check for five hundred dollars.
“What does it mean?” she said, her cheek flushing
with anger and insulted pride as she read the following
brief lines:
“New York, May 8th.
“Miss Helen Lennox: Please pardon the liberty I have taken in
inclosing the sum of $500 to be used by you in procuring whatever
Katy may need for present necessities. Presuming that the
country seamstresses have not the best facilities for obtaining the
latest fashions, my mother proposes sending out her own private
dressmaker, Mrs. Ryan. You may look for her the last of the week.
“Yours truly, Wilford Cameron.”
It would be impossible to describe Helen's indignation
as she read this letter, which roused her to a pitch of
anger such as Wilford Cameron had never imagined
when he wrote the offensive lines. He had really no intention
of insulting her. On the contrary, the gift of
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[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]
money was kindly meant, for he knew that Uncle
Ephraim was poor, while the part referring to the dress-maker
was wholly his mother's proposition, to which he
had acceded, knowing how much confidence Juno had in
her taste, and that whatever she might see at the farm-house
would remain a secret with her, or at most be confined
to the ears of his mother and sisters. He wished
Katy to look well, and foolishly fancying that no country
artiste could make her look so, he consented to Mrs.
Ryan's going, never dreaming of the effect it would have
upon Helen, whose first impulse was to throw the check
into the fire. Her second, however, was soberer. She
would not destroy it, nor tell any one she had it, but
Morris—he should know the whole. Accordingly, she repaired
to Linwood, finding Morris at home, and startling
him with the vehemence of her anger as she explained
the nature of her errand.
“If I disliked Wilford Cameron before, I hate him
now. Yes, hate him,” she said, stamping her little foot
in fury.
“Why, Helen!” Morris exclaimed, laying his hand reprovingly
on her shoulder; “is this the right spirit for
one who professes better things? Stop a moment and
think.”
“I know it is wrong,” Helen answered, “but somehow
since he came after Katy, I have grown so hard, so
wicked toward Mr. Cameron. He seems so proud, so
unapproachable. Say, Cousin Morris, do you think him
a good man, that is, good enough for Katy?”
“Most people would call him too good for her,” Morris
replied. “And, in a worldly point of view, she is doing
well. Cameron, I believe, is better than threefourths
of the men who marry our girls. He is very
proud: but that results from his education and training.
Looking only from a New York stand-point he misjudges
country people, but he will appreciate you by and by.
Do not begin by hating him so cordially.”
“Yes, but this money. Now, Morris, we do not want
him to get Katy's outfit. I would rather go without
clothes my whole life. Shall I send it back?”
“I think that the best disposition to make of it,”
-- 073 --
[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]
Morris replied. “As your brother, I can and will supply
Katy's needs.”
“I knew you would, Morris. And I'll send it to-day,
in time to keep that dreadful Mrs. Ryan from coming;
for I won't have any of Wilford Cameron's dress-makers
in the house.”
Morris could not help smiling at Helen's energetic
manner, as she hurried to his library and taking his pen
wrote to Wilford Cameron as follows:
Silverton, May 9th, 18—.
Mr. Wilford Cameron: — I give you credit for the kindest of
motives in sending the check which I now return to you, with my
compliments. We are not as poor as you suppose, and would almost
deem it sacrilege to let another than ourselves provide for Katy
so long as she is ours. And furthermore, Mrs. Ryan's services will
not be needed, so it is not worth her while to make a journey here
for nothing.
Yours,
Helen Lennox.
Helen felt better after this letter had gone, wondering
often how it would be received, and if Wilford would be
angry. She hoped he would, and his mother too. “The
idea of sending that Ryan woman to us, as if we did not
know anything!” and Helen's lip curled scornfully as she
thus denounced the Ryan woman, whose trunk was packed
with paper patterns and devices of various kinds when
the letter arrived, saying she was not needed. Being a
woman of few words, she quietly unpacked her patterns
and went back to the work she was engaged upon when
Mrs. Cameron proposed her going into the country.
Juno, on the contrary, flew into a violent passion to
think their first friendly advances should be thus received.
Bell laughed immoderately, saying she liked
Helen Lennox's spirit, and wished her brother had
chosen her instead of the other, who, she presumed, was
a milk and water thing, even if Mrs. Woodhull did extol
her so highly. Mrs. Cameron felt the rebuke keenly,
wincing under it, and saying “that Helen Lennox must
be a very rude, ill-bred girl,” and hoping her son would
draw the line of division between his wife and her family
so tightly that the sister could never pass over it. She
had received the news of her son's engagement without
-- 074 --
[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]
opposition, for she knew the time for that was past.
Wilford would marry Katy Lennox, and she must make
the best of it, so she offered no remonstrance, but, when
they were alone, she said to him, “Did you tell her?
Does she know it all?”
“No, mother,” and the old look of pain came back into
Wilford's face. “I meant to do so, and I actually began,
but she stopped me short, saying she did not wish to
hear my faults, she would rather find them out herself.
Away from her it is very easy to think what I will do, but
when the trial comes I find it hard, we have kept it so
long; but I shall tell her yet; not till after we are married
though, and I have made her love me even more
than she does now. She will not mind it then. I shall
take her where I first met Genevra, and there I will tell
her. Is that right?”
“Yes, if you think so,” Mrs. Cameron replied.
Whatever it was which Wilford had to tell Katy Lennox,
it was very evident that he and his mother looked
at it differently, he regarding it as a duty he owed to
Katy not to conceal from her what might possibly influence
her decision, while his mother only wished the
secret told in hopes that it would prevent the marriage;
but now that Wilford had deferred it till after the marriage,
she saw no reason why it need be told at all. At
least Wilford could do as he thought best, and she
changed the conversation from Genevra to Helen's letter,
which had so upset her plans. That her future daughter-in-law
was handsome she did not doubt, but she, of
course, had no manner, no style, and as a means of improving
her in the latter respect, and making her presentable
at the altar and in Boston, she had proposed
sending out Ryan; but that project had failed, and
Helen Lennox did not stand very high in the Cameron
family, though Wilford in his heart felt an increased respect
for her independent spirit, notwithstanding that
she had thwarted his designs.
“I have another idea,” Mrs. Cameron said to her
daughters that afternoon, when talking with them upon
the subject. “Wilford tells me Katy and Bell are about
the same size and figure, and Ryan shall make up a
traveling suit proper for the occasion. Of course there
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[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]
will be no one at the wedding for whom we care, but in
Boston, at the Revere, it will be different. Cousin Harvey
boards there, and she is very stylish. I saw some
elegant grey poplins, of the finest lustre, at Stewart's
yesterday. Suppose we drive down this afternoon.”
This was said to Juno as the more fashionable one of
the sisters, but Bell answered quickly, “Poplin, mother,
on Katy? It will not become her style, I am sure, though
suitable for many. If I am to be fitted, I shall say a word
about the fabric. Get a little checked silk, as expensive
as you like. It will suit her better than a heavy
poplin.”
Perhaps Bell was right, Mrs. Cameron said; they
would look at both, and as the result of this looking, two
dresses, one of the finest poplin, and one of the softest,
richest, plaided silk, were given the next day into Mrs.
Ryan's hands, with injunctions to spare no pains or
expense in trimming and making both. And so the
dress-making for Katy's bridal was proceeding in New
York, in spite of Helen's letter; while down in Silverton,
at the farm-house, there were numerous consultations as
to what was proper and what was not, Helen sometimes almost
wishing she had suffered Mrs. Ryan to come. Katy
would look well in anything, but Helen knew there were
certain styles preferable to others, and in a maze of perplexity
she consulted with this and that individual, until
all Silverton knew what was projected, each one offering
the benefit of her advice until Helen and Katy were nearly
distracted. Aunt Betsy suggested a blue delaine and
round cape, offering to get it herself, and actually purchasing
the material with her own funds, saved from drying
apples. That would answer for one dress, Helen said,
but not for the wedding; and she was becoming more
undecided, when Morris came to the rescue, telling Katy
of a young woman who had for some time past been his
patient, but who was now nearly well and anxious to obtain
work again. She had evidently seen better days, he
said; was very ladylike in her manner, and possessed of
a great deal of taste, he imagined; besides that, she had
worked in one of the largest shops in New York. “As I
am going this afternoon over to North Silverton,” he
added, in conclusion, “and shall pass Miss Hazelton's
-- 076 --
[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]
house, you or Helen might accompany me and see for
yourself.”
It was decided that Helen should go, and about four
o'clock she found herself ringing at the cottage over
whose door hung the sign, “Miss M. Hazelton, Fashionable
Dressmaker.” She was at home, and in a few moments
Helen was talking with Marian Hazelton, whose
face showed signs of recent illness, but was nevertheless
very attractive, from its peculiarly sad expression and
the soft liquid eyes of dark blue, which looked as if they
were not strangers to tears. At twenty she must have
been strikingly beautiful; and even now, at thirty, few
ladies could have vied with her had she possessed the
means for gratifying her taste and studying her style.
About the mouth, so perfect in repose, there was when
she spoke a singularly sweet smile, which in a measure
prepared one for the low, silvery voice, which had a
strange note of mournful music in its tone, making Helen
start as it asked, “Did you wish to see me?”
“Yes; Dr. Grant told me you could make dresses, and
I drove round with him to secure your services, if possible,
for my sister, who is soon to be married. We would
like it so much if you could go to our house instead of
having Katy come here.”
Marian Hazelton was needing work, for there was due
more than three months' board, besides the doctor's bill,
and so, though it was not her custom to go from house
to house, she would, in this instance, accommodate Miss
Lennox, especially as during her illness her customers
had many of them gone elsewhere, and her little shop
was nearly broken up. “Was it an elaborate trousseau
she was expected to make?” and she bent down to turn
over some fashion plates lying upon the table.
“Oh, no! we are plain country people. We cannot
afford as much for Katy as we would like; beside, I dare
say Mr. Cameron will prefer selecting most of her wardrobe
himself, as he is very wealthy and fastidious,” Helen
replied, repenting the next instant the part concerning
Mr. Cameron's wealth, as that might look like boasting to
Miss Hazelton, whose head was bent lower over the magazine
as she said, “Did I understand that the gentleman's
name was Cameron?”
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[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]
“Yes, Wilford Cameron, from New York,” Helen
answered, holding up her skirts and s-s-kt-ing at the
kitten which came running toward her, evidently intent
upon springing into her lap.
Fear of cats was Helen's weakness, if weakness it can
be called, and in her efforts to frighten her tormentor
she did not look again at Miss Hazelton until startled by
a gasping cry and heavy fall. Marian had fainted, and
Helen was just raising her head from the floor to her lap
when Morris appeared, relieving her of her burden, of
whom he took charge until she showed signs of life. In
her alarm Helen forgot entirely what they were talking
about when the faint came on, and her first question put
to Marian was, “Were you taken suddenly ill? Why
did you faint?”
There was no answer at first; but when she did speak
Marian said, “I am still so weak that the least exertion
affects me, and I was bending over the table; it will soon
pass off.”
If she was so weak she was not able to work, Helen said,
proposing that the plan be for the present abandoned;
but to this Marian would not listen; and her great
eager eyes had in them so scared a look that Helen said
no more on that subject, but made arrangements for her
coming to them at once. Morris was to leave his patient
some medicine, and while he was preparing it, Helen had
time to notice her more carefully, admiring her ladylike
manners, and thinking her smile the sweetest she had ever
seen. Greatly interested in her, Helen plied Morris with
questions of Miss Hazelton during their ride home, asking
what he knew of her.
“Nothing, except that she came to North Silverton a
year ago, opening her shop, and by her faithfulness, and
pleasant, obliging manners, winning favor with all who
employed her. Previous to her sickness she had a few
times attended St. Paul's at South Silverton, that being
the church of her choice. Had Helen never observed
her?”
No, Helen had not. And then she spoke of her fainting,
telling how sudden it was, and wondering if she was
subject to such turns. Marian Hazelton had made a
strong impression on Helen's mind, and she talked of
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her so much that Katy waited her appearance at the
farm-house with feverish anxiety. It was evening when
she came, looking very white, and seeming to Helen as
if she had changed since she saw her first. In her eyes
there was a kind of hopeless, weary expression, while
her smile made one almost wish to cry, it was so sad,
and yet so strangely sweet. Katy felt its influence at
once, growing very confidential with the stranger, who,
during the half hour in which they were accidentally
left alone, drew from her every particular concerning
her intended marriage. Very closely the dark blue eyes
scrutinized little Katy, taking in first the faultless beauty
of her face, and then going away down into the inmost
depths of her character, as if to find out what was
there.
“Pure, loving, innocent, and unsuspecting,” was Marian
Hazelton's verdict, and she followed wistfully every
movement of the young girl as she flitted around the
room, chatting as familiarly with the dressmaker as if
she were a friend long known instead of an entire
stranger.
“You look very young to be married,” Miss Hazleton
said to her once, and shaking back her short rings of
hair Katy answered, “Eighteen next Fourth of July;
but Mr. Cameron is thirty.”
“Is he a widower?” was the next question, which
Katy answered with a merry laugh. “Mercy, no! I
marry a widower! How funny! I don't believe he
ever cared a fig for anybody but me. I mean to ask
him.”
“I would,” and the pale lips shut tightly together,
while a resentful gleam shot for a moment across Marian's
face; but it quickly passed away, and her smile was
as sweet as ever as she at last bade the family good
night and repaired to the little room where Wilford
Cameron once had slept.
A long time she stood before the glass, brushing her
dark abundant hair, and intently regarding her own
features, while in her eyes there was a hard, terrible
look, from which Katy Lennox would have shrunk
in fear. But that too passed, and the eyes grew soft
with tears as she turned away, and falling on her knees
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moaned sadly, “I never will—no, I never will. God
help me to keep the promise. Were it the other one—
Helen—I might, for she could bear it; but Katy, that
child—no, I never will,” and as the words died on her
lips there came struggling up from her heart a prayer
for Katy Lennox's happniess, as fervent and sincere as
any which had ever been made for her since she was betrothed.
They gre to liking each other rapidly, Marian and
Katy, the latter of whom thought her new friend greatly
out of place as a dressmaker, telling her she ought to
marry some rich man, calling her Marian altogether,
and questioning her very closely of her previous life.
But Marian only told her that she was born in London;
that she learned her trade on the Isle of Wight, near to
the Osburne House, where the royal family sometimes
came, and that she had often seen the present Queen,
thus trying to divert Katy's mind from asking what
there was besides that apprenticeship to the Misses True
on the Isle of Wight. Once indeed she went farther,
saying that her friends were dead; that she had come
to America in hopes of doing better than she could
at home; that she had stayed in New York until her
health began to fail, and then had tried what country air
would do, coming to North Silverton because a young
woman who worked in the same shop was acquainted
there, and recommended the place. This was all Katy
could learn, and Marian's heart history, if she had one,
was guarded carefully.
They had decided at last upon the wedding dress,
which Helen reserved the right to make herself. Miss
Hazelton must fit it, of course, but to her belonged the
privilege of making it, every stitch; Katy would think
more of it if she did it all, she said; but she did not confess
how the bending over that dress, both early and late,
was the escape-valve for the feeling which otherwise
would have found vent in passionate tears. Helen was
very wretched during the pleasant May days she usually
enjoyed so much, but over which now a dark pall was
spread, shutting out all the brightness and leaving only
the terrible certainty that Katy was lost to her forever—
bright, frolicsome Katy, who, without a shadow on her
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heart, sported amid the bridal finery, unmindful of the
anguish tugging at the hearts of both the patient women,
Marian and Helen, who worked on so silently, reserving
their tears for the night-time, when Katy was dreaming of
Wilford Cameron. Helen was greatly interested in
Marian, but never guessed that her feelings, too, were
stirred to their very depths as the bridal preparations
progressed. She only knew how wretched she was herself,
and how hard it was to fight her tears back as she
bent over the silk, weaving in with every stitch a part of
the clinging love which each day grew stronger for the
only sister, who would soon be gone, leaving her alone.
Only once did she break entirely down, and that was
when the dress was done and Katy tried it on, admiring
its effect, and having a second glass brought that she
might see it behind.
“Isn't it lovely?” she exclaimed; “and the more valuable
because you made it. I shall think of you every
time I wear it,” and the impulsive girl wound her arms
around Helen's neck, kissing her lovingly, while Helen
sank into a chair and sobbed aloud, “Oh, Katy, darling
Katy! you won't forget me when you are rich and admired,
and can have all you want? You will remember
us here at home, so sad and lonely? You don't know
how desolate it will be, knowing you are gone, never to
come back again, just as you go away.”
In an instant Katy was on her knees before Helen,
whom she tried to comfort by telling her she should
come back,—come often, too, staying a long while; and
that when she had a city home of her own she should
live with her for good, and they would be so happy.
“I cannot quite give Wilford up to please you,” she
said, when that gigantic sacrifice suggested itself as
something which it was possible Helen might require of
her; “but I will do anything else, only please don't cry,
darling Nellie—please don't cry. It spoils all my pleasure,”
and Katy's soft hands wiped away the tears running
so fast over her sister's face.
After that Helen did not cry again in Katy's presence,
but the latter knew she wanted to, and it made her rather
sad, particularly when she saw reflected in the faces
of the other members of the family the grief she had
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witnessed in Helen. Even Uncle Ephraim was not as cheerful
as usual, and once when Katy came upon him in the
woodshed chamber, where he was shelling corn, she
found him resting from his work and looking from the
window far off across the hills, with a look which made
her guess he was thinking of her, and stealing up beside
him she laid her hand upon his wrinkled face, whispering
softly, “Poor Uncle Eph, are you sorry, too?”
He knew what she meant, and the aged chin quivered,
while a big tear dropped into the tub of corn as he replied.
“Yes, Katy-did—very sorry.”
That was all he said, and Katy, after smoothing his
silvery hair a moment, kissed his cheek and then stole
away, wondering if the love to which she was going was
equal to the love of home, which, as the days went by,
grew stronger and stronger, enfolding her in a mighty
embrace, which could only be severed by bitter tears
and fierce heart-pangs, such as death itself sometimes
brings. In that household there was, after Katy, no
one glad of that marriage except the mother, and she
was only glad because of the position it would bring to
her daughter. But among them all Morris suffered
most, and suffered more because he had to endure in
secret, so that no one guessed the pain it was for him to
go each day where Katy was, and watch her as she sometimes
donned a part of her finery for his benefit, asking
him once if he did not wish he were in Wilford's place,
so as to have as pretty a bride as she should make.
Then Marian Hazelton glanced up in time to see the expression
of his face, a look whose meaning she readily
recognized, and when Dr. Grant left the farm-house that
day, another than himself knew of his love for Katy,
drawing her breath hurriedly as she thought of taking
back the words, “I never will,”—of revoking that decision
and telling Katy what Wilford Cameron should have
told her long before. But the wild wish fled, and Wilford's
secret was safe, while Marian watched Morris
Grant with a pitying interest as he came among them,
speaking always in the same kind, gentle tone, and trying
so hard to enter into Katy's joy.
“His burden is greater than mine. God help us
both,” Marian said, as she resumed her work.
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And so amid joy and gladness, silent tears and breaking
hearts, the preparations went on until all was done,
and only three days remained before the eventful tenth.
Marian Hazelton was going home, for she would not
stay at the farm-house until all was over, notwithstanding
Katy's entreaties were joined to those of Helen.
“Perhaps she would come to the church,” she said,
“though she could not promise;” and her manner was
so strange that Katy wondered if she could have offended
her, and at last said to her timidly, as she stood with
her bonnet on, waiting for Uncle Ephraim, “You are not
angry with me for anything, are you?”
“Angry with you!” and Katy never forgot the glitter
of the tearful eyes, or their peculiar expression as they
turned upon her. “No, oh, on; I could not be angry
with you, and yet, Katy Lennox, some in my position
would hate you, contrasting your prospects with their
own; but I do not; I love you; I bless you, and pray
that you may be happy with your husband; honor him,
obey him if need be, and above all, never give him the
slightest cause to doubt you. You will have admirers,
Katy Lennox. In New York others than your husband
will speak to you words of flattery, but don't you listen.
Remember what I tell you; and now, again, God bless
you.”
She touched her lips to Katy's forehead, and when
they were withdrawn there were great tears there which
she had left! Marian's tears on Katy's brow; and it was
very meet that just before her bridal day Wilford Cameron's
bride should receive such baptism from Marian
Hazelton.
CHAPTER IX. BEFORE THE MARRIAGE.
ON the morning of the 9th day of June, 18—,
Wilford Cameron stood in his father's parlor, surrounded
by the entire family, who, after their unusually
early breakfast, had assembled to bid him
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good-bye, for Wilford was going for his bride, and it
would be months, if not a year, ere he returned to them
again. They had given him up to his idol, asking only
that none of the idol's family should be permitted to
cross their threshold, and also that the idol should not
often be allowed the privilege of returning to the place
from whence she came. These restrictions had emanated
from the female portion of the Cameron family, the
mother, Juno and Bell. The father, on the contrary,
had sworn roundly as he would sometimes swear at what
he called the contemptible pride of his wife and daughters.
Katy was sure of a place in his heart just because
of the pride which was building up so high a wall between
her and her friends, and when at parting he held
his son's hand in his, he said,
“I charge you Will, be kind to that young girl, and
don't for Heaven's sake go to cramming her with airs
and nonsense which she does not understand. Tell her
I'll be a father to her; her own, you say, is dead, and
give her this as my bridal present.”
He held out a small box containing a most exquisite
set of pearls, such as he fancied would be becoming to
the soft, girlish beauty Wilford had described. Something
in his father's manner touched Wilford closely,
making him resolve anew that if Kitty were not happy
as Mrs. Cameron it should not be his fault. His mother
had said all she wished to say, while his sisters had been
gracious enough to send their love to the bride, Bell hoping
she would look as well in the poplin and little plaid
as she had done. Either was suitable for the wedding
day, Mrs. Cameron said, and she might take her choice,
only Wilford must see that she did not wear with the
poplin the gloves and belt intended for the silk; country
people had so little taste, and she did want Katy to look
well, even if she were not there to see her. And with his
brain a confused medley of poplins and plaids, belts and
gloves, pearls and Katy, Wilford finally tore himself
away, and at three o'clock that afternoon drove through
Silverton village, past the little church, which the Silverton
maidens were decorating with flowers, pausing a
moment in their work to look at him as he went by.
Among them was Marian Hazelton, but she only bent
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[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]
lower over her work, thus hiding the tear which
dropped upon the delicate buds she was fashioning into
the words, “Joy to the Bride,” intending the whole as
the center of the wreath to be placed over the altar
where all could see it.
“The handsomest man I ever saw,” was the verdict of
most of the girls as they came back to their work, while
Wilford drove on to the farm-house where Katy had been
so anxiously watching for him.
When he came in sight, however, and she knew he
was actually there, she ran away to hide her blushes, and
the feeling of awe which had come suddenly over her for
the man who was to be her husband. But Helen bade
her go back, and so she went coyly in to Wilford, who
met her with loving caresses, and then put upon her finger
the superb diamond which he said he had thought to
send as a pledge of their engagement, but had finally
concluded to wait and present himself. Katy had heard
much of diamonds, and seen some in Canandaigua; but
the idea that she, plain Katy Lennox, would ever wear
them, had never entered her mind; and now, as she
looked at the brilliant gem sparkling upon her hand, she
felt a thrill of something more than joy at that good fortune
which had brought her to diamonds. Vanity, we
suppose it was—such vanity as was very natural in her
case, and she thought she should never tire of looking at
the precious stone; but when Wilford showed her next
the plain broad band of gold, and tried it on her third
finger, asking if she knew what it meant, the true woman
spoke within her, and she answered tearfully,
“Yes, I know, and I will try to prove worthy of what
I shall be to you when I wear that ring for good.”
Katy was very quiet for a moment as she sat with her
head nestled against Wilford's bosom, but when he observed
that she was looking tired, and asked if she had
been working hard, the quiet fit was broken, and she
told him of the dress “we had made,” the we referring
solely to Helen and Marian, for Katy had hardly done a
thing. But it did not matter; she fancied she had, and
she asked if he did not wish to see her dresses. Wilford
knew it would please Katy, and so he followed her into
the adjoining room, where they were spread out upon
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[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]
tables and chairs, with Helen in their midst, ready to
pack them away. Wilford thought of Mrs. Ryan and the
check, but he shook hands with Helen very civilly, saying
to her playfully,
“I suppose you are willing I should take your sister
with me this time.”
Helen could not answer, but turned away to hide her
face, while Katy showed one dress after another, until
she came to the silk, which, with a bright blush, she told
him “was the very thing itself—the one intended for to-morrow,”
and asked if he did not like it.
Wilford could not help telling her yes, for he knew
she wished him to do so, but in his heart he was thinking
bad thoughts against the wardrobe of his bride elect—
thoughts which would have won for him the title of
hen-huzzy from Helen, could she have known them. And
yet Wilford did not deserve that name. He had been
accustomed all his life to hearing dress discussed in his
mother's parlor, and in his sisters' boudoir, while for the
last five weeks he had heard at home of little else than
the probable tout ensemble of Katy's wardrobe, bought and
made in the country, his mother deciding finally to write
to her cousin, Mrs. Harvey, who boarded at the Revere,
and have her see to it before Katy left the city. Under
these circumstances, it was not strange that Wilford did
not enter into Katy's delight, even after she told him how
Helen had made every stitch of the dress herself, and
that it would on that account be very dear to her. This
was a favorable time for getting the poplin off his mind,
and with a premonitory ahem he said, “Yes, it is very nice,
no doubt; but,” and here he turned to Helen, “after Mrs.
Ryan's services were declined, my mother determined to
have two dresses fitted to sister Bell, who I think is just
Katy's size and figure. I need not say,” and his eyes
still rested on Helen, who gave him back an unflinching
glance, “I need not say that no pains have been spared
to make these garments everything they should be in
point of quality and style. I have them in my trunk,
and,” turning now to Katy, “it is my mother's special
request that one of them be worn to-morrow. You
could take your choice, she said—either was suitable. I
will bring them for your inspection.”
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He left the room, while Helen's face resembled a dark
thunder-cloud, whose lightnings shone in her flashing
eyes as she looked after him and then back to where
Katy stood, bewildered and wondering what was wrong.
“Who is Mrs Ryan?” she asked. “What does he
mean?” but before Helen could command her voice to
explain, Wilford was with them again, bringing the
dresses, over which Katy nearly went wild.
She had never seen anything as elegant as the rich
heavy poplin or the soft lustrous silk, while even Helen
acknowledged that there was about them a finish which
threw Miss Hazelton's quite in the shade.
“Beautiful!” Katy exclaimed; “and trimmed so exquisitely!
I do so hope they will fit!”
“I dare say they will,” Wilford replied, enjoying her
appreciation of his mother's gift. “At all events they
will answer for to-morrow, and any needful alterations
can be made in Boston. Which will you wear?”
“Oh, I don't know. I wish I could wear both.
Helen, which shall I?” and Katy appealed to her sister,
who could endure no more, but hid her head among the
pillows of the bed and cried.
Katy understood the whole, and dropping the silk to
which she inclined the most, she flew to Helen's side and
whispered to her, “Don't, Nellie, I won't wear either of
them. I'll wear the one you made. It was mean and
vain in me to think of doing otherwise.”
During this scene Wilford had stolen from the room,
and with him gone Helen was capable of judging candidly
and sensibly. She knew the city silk was handsomer
and better suited for Wilford Cameron's bride
than the country plaid, and so she said to Katy,
“I would rather you should wear the one they
sent. It will become you better. Suppose you try it
on,” and in seeking to gratify her sister, Helen forgot
in part her own cruel disappointment, and that her work
of days had been for naught. The dress fitted well,
though Katy pronounced it too tight and too long. A
few moments, however, accustomed her to the length,
and then her mother, Aunt Hannah, and Aunt Betsy,
came to see and admire, while Katy proposed going out
to Wilford, but Helen kept her back, Aunt Betsy
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[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]
remarking under her breath, that “she didn't see for the life
on her how Catherine could be so free and easy with
that man when just the sight of him was enough to take
away a body's breath.”
“More free and easy than she will be by and by,” was
Helen's mental comment as she proceeded quietly to
pack the trunk which Morris had brought for the voyage
across the sea, dropping into it many a tear as she
folded away one article after another, and wondered
under what circumstances she should see them again if
she saw them ever.
Helen was a Christian girl, and many a time had she
prayed in secret that He who rules the deep would keep
its waters calm and still while her sister was upon them,
and she prayed so now, constantly, burying her face
once in her hands, and asking that Katy might come
back to them unchanged, if possible, and asking next
that God would remove from her heart all bitterness
towards the bridegroom, who was to be her brother, and
whom, after that short, earnest prayer, she found herself
liking better. He loved Katy, she was sure, and that
was all she cared for, though she did wish he would release
her before twelve o'clock on that night, the last
she would spend with them for a long, long time. But
Wilford kept her with him in the parlor, kissing away
the tears which flowed so fast when she recalled the
prayer said by Uncle Ephraim, with her kneeling by him
as she might never kneel again. He had called her by
her name, and his voice was very sad as he commended
her to God, asking that he would “be with our little
Katy wherever she might go, keeping her in all the
mewandering scenes of life, and bringing her at last to
his own heavenly home,”
Wilford himself was touched, and though he noticed
the deacon's pronunciation, he did not even smile, and
his manner was very respectful, when, after the prayer was
over and they were alone a moment, the white-haired
deacon felt it incumbent upon him to say a few words
concerning Katy.
“She's a young, rattle-headed creature, not much like
your own kin, I guess; but, young man, she is as dear
as the apple of our eyes, and I charge you to treat her
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[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]
well. She has never had a crossways word spoke to her
all her life, and don't you be the first to speak it, nor let
your folks browbeat her.”
As they were alone, it was easier for Wilford to be
humble and conciliatory, and he promised all the old man
required, and then went back to Katy, who was going into
raptures over the beautiful little watch which Morris had
sent over as her bridal gift from him. Even Mrs. Cameron
herself could have found no fault with this, and
Wilford praised it as much as Katy could desire, noticing
the inscription, “Katy, from Cousin Morris, June
10th, 18—,” wishing that after the “Katy” had come
the name Cameron, and wondering if Morris had any
design in omitting it. Wilford had not yet presented
his father's gift, but he did so now, and Katy's tears
dropped upon the pale, soft pearls as she whispered, “I
shall like your father. I never thought of having things
like these.”
Nor had she; but she would grow to them very soon,
while even the family gathering round and sharing in
her joy began to realize how great a lady their Katy was
to be. It was late that night ere anybody slept, if sleep
at all they did, which was doubtful, unless it were the
bride, who, with Wilford's kisses warm upon her lips,
crept up to bed just as the clock was striking twelve, nor
woke until it was again chiming for six, and over her
Helen bent, a dark ring about her eyes and her face very
white as she whispered, “Wake, Katy darling, this is
your wedding day.”
CHAPTER X. MARRIAGE AT ST. JOHN'S.
THERE were more than a few lookers-on to see
Katy Lennox married, and the church was literally
jammed for full three-quarters of an hour before
the appointed time. Back by the door, where
she commanded a full view of the middle aisle, Marian
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[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]
Hazelton sat, her face as white as ashes, and her eyes gleaming
strangely wild from beneath the thickly dotted veil
she wore over her hat. Doubts as to her wisdom in
coming there were agitating her mind, but something
kept her sitting just as others sat waiting for the bride
until the sexton, opening wide the doors, and assuming
an added air of consequence, told the anxious spectators
that the party had arrived—Uncle Ephraim and Katy,
Wilford and Mrs. Lennox, Dr. Morris and Helen, Aunt
Hannah and Aunt Betsy—that was all, and they came
slowly up the aisle, while countless eyes were turned
upon them, every woman noticing Katy's dress sweeping
the carpet with so long a trail, and knowing by some
queer female instinct that it was city-made, and not the
handiwork of Marian Hazelton, panting for breath in
that pew near the door, and trying to forget herself by
watching Dr. Grant. She could not have told what
Katy wore; she would not have sworn that Katy was
there, for she saw only two, Wilford and Morris Grant.
She could have touched the former as he passed her by,
and she did breathe the odor of his garments while her
hands clasped each other tightly, and then she turned
to Morris Grant, growing content with her own pain, so
much less than his as he stood before the altar with Wilford
Cameron between him and the bride which should
have been his. How pretty she was in her wedding
garb, and how like a bird her voice rang out as she responded
to the solemn question,
“Will you have this man to be thy wedded husband,”
etc.
Upon Uncle Ephraim devolved the duty of giving her
away, a thing which Aunt Betsy denounced as a “'Piscopal
quirk,” classing it in the same category with dancing.
Still if Ephraim had got it to do she wanted him
to do it well, and she had taken some pains to study that
part of the ceremony, so as to know when to nudge her
brother in case he failed of coming up to time.
“Now, Ephraim, now; they've reached the quirk,” she
whispered, audibly, almost before Katy's “I will” was
heard, clear and distinct; but Ephraim did not need her
prompting, and his hand rested lovingly upon Katy's
shoulder as he signified his consent, and then fell back
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[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]
to his place next to Hannah. But when Wilford's voice
said, “I, Wilford, take thee Katy to be my wedded wife,”
there was a slight confusion near the door, and those
sitting by said to those in front that some one had
fainted. Looking round, the audience saw the sexton
leading Marian Hazelton out into the open air, where, at
her request, he left her, and went back to see the closing
of the ceremony which made Katy Lennox a wife. Morris's
carriage was at the door, and the newly married
pair moved slowly out, Katy smiling upon all, kissing her
hand to some and whispering a good-bye to others, her
diamonds flashing in the light and her rich silk rustling as
she walked, while at her side was Wilford, proudly erect,
and holding his head so high as not to see one of the
crowd around him, until, arrived at the vestibule, he
stopped a moment and was seized by a young man with
eurling hair, saucy eyes, and that air of ease and assurance
which betokens high breeding and wealth.
“Mark Ray!” was Wilford's astonished exclamation,
while Mark Ray replied,
“You did not expect to see me here, neither did I expect
to come until last night, when I found myself in the
little villiage where you know Scranton lives. Then it
occurred to me that as Silverton was only a few miles
distant I would drive over and surprise you, but I am too
late for the ceremony, I see,” and Mark's eyes rested admiringly
upon Katy, whose graceful beauty was fully
equal to what he had imagined.
Very modestly she received his congratulatory greeting,
blushing prettily when he called her by the new name
she had not heard before, and then, at a motion from
Wilford, entered the carriage waiting for her. Close behind
her came Morris and Helen, the former quite as
much astonished at meeting Mark as Wilford had been.
There was no time for conversation, and hurriedly introducing
Helen as Miss Lennox, Morris followed her into
the carriage with the bridal pair, and was driven to the
depot, where they were joined by Mark, whose pleasant,
good-humored sallies did much towards making the parting
more cheerful than it would otherwise have been. It
was sad enough at the most, and Katy's eyes were very
red, while Wilford was beginning to look chagrined and
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[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]
and impatient, when at last the train swept round the
corner and the very last good-bye was said. Many of
the village people were there to see Katy off, and in the
crowd Mark had no means of distinguishing the Barlows
from the others, except it were by the fond caresses given
to the bride. Aunt Betsy he had observed from all the
rest, both from the hanging of her pongee and the general
quaintness of her attire, and thinking it just possible
that it might be the lady of herrin' bone memory, he
touched Wilford's arm as she passed them by, and said,
“Tell me, Will, quick, who is that woman in the poke
bonnet and short, slim dress?”
Wilford was just then too much occupied in his efforts
to rescue Katy from the crowd of plebeians who had
seized upon her to hear his friend's query, but Helen
heard it, and with a cheek which crimsoned with anger,
she replied,
“That, sir, is my aunt, Miss Betsy Barlow.”
“I beg your pardon, I really do. I was not aware—”
Mark began, lifting his hat involuntarily, and mentally
cursing himself for his stupidity in not observing who
was near to him before asking personal questions.
With a toss of her head Helen turned away, forgetting
her resentment in the more absorbing thought that Katy
was leaving her.
The bell had rung, the heavy machinery groaned and
creaked, and the long train was under way, while from
an open window a little white hand was thrust, waving
its handkerchief until the husband quietly drew it in, experiencing
a feeling of relief that all was over, and that
unless he chose his wife need never go back again to that
vulgar crowd standing upon the platform and looking
with tearful eyes and aching hearts after the fast receding
train.
For a moment Mark talked with Morris Grant, explaining
how he came there, and adding that on the morrow
he too intended going on to Boston, to remain for a few
days before Wilford sailed; then, feeling that he must in
some way atone for his awkward speech regarding Aunt
Betsy, he sought out Helen, still standing like a statue
and watching the feathery line of smoke rising above the
distant trees. Her bonnet had partially fallen from her
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head, revealing her bands of rich brown hair and the
smooth broad forehead, while her hands were locked together,
and a tear trembled on her dark eye-lashes.
Taken as a whole she made a striking picture standing
apart from the rest and totally oblivious to them all, and
Mark gazed at her a moment curiously; then, as her
attitude changed and she drew her hat back to its place,
he advanced toward her, making some pleasant remark
about the morning and the appearance of the country
generally. He knew he could not openly apologize, but
he made what amends he could by talking to her so
familiarly that Helen almost forgot how she hated him
and all others who like him lived in New York and resembled
Wilford Cameron. It was Mark who led her
to the carriage which Morris said was waiting. Mark
who handed her in, smoothing down the folds of her
dress, and then stood leaning against the door, chatting
with Morris, who thought once of asking him to enter
and go back to Linwood. But when he remembered
how unequal he was to entertaining any one that day, he
said merely,
“On your way from Boston, call and see me. I shall
be glad of your company then.”
“Which means that you do not wish it now,” Mark
laughingly rejoined, as, offering his hand to both Morris
and Helen, he touched his hat and walked away.
CHAPTER XI. AFTER THE MARRIAGE.
WHY did you invite him to Linwood?” Helen
began. “I am sure we have had city guests
enough. Oh, if Wilford Cameron had only never
come, we should have had Katy now,” and the
sister-love overcame every other feeling, making Helen
cry bitterly as they drove back to the farm-house.
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Morris could not comfort her then, and so in silence
he left her and went on his way to Linwood. It was
well for him that there were many sick ones on his list,
for in attending to them he forgot himself in part, so that
the day with him passed faster than at the farm-house,
where life and its interests seemed suddenly to have
stopped. Nothing had power to rouse Helen, who never
realized how much she loved her young sister until now,
when she listlessly put to rights the room which had
been theirs so long, but which was now hers alone. It
was a sad task picking up that disordered chamber, bearing
so many traces of Katy, and Helen's heart ached
terribly as she hung away the little pink calico dressing-gown
in which Katy had looked so prettily, and picked
up from the floor the pile of skirts lying just where they
had been left the previous night; but when it came to
the little half-worn slippers which had been thrown one
here and another there as Katy danced out of them, she
could control herself no longer, and stopping in her work
sobbed bitterly, “Oh, Katy, Katy, how can I live without
you!” But tears could not bring Katy back, and knowing
this, Helen dried her eyes ere long and joined the family
below, who like herself were spiritless and sad.
It was some little solace to them all that day to follow
Katy in her journey, saying, she is at Worcester, or
Framingham, or Newtown, and when at noon they sat
down to their dinner in the tidy kitchen they said, “She
is in Boston,” and the saying so made the time which
had elapsed since the morning seem interminable.
Slowly the hours dragged, and at last, before the sunsetting,
Helen, who could bear the loneliness of home no
longer, stole across the fields to Linwood, hoping in
Morris's companionship to forget her own grief in part.
But Morris was a sorry comforter then. He had ministered
as usual to his patients that day, listening to their
complaints and answering patiently their inquiries; but
amid it all he walked as in a maze, hearing nothing except
the words, “I, Katy, take thee, Wilford, to be my
wedded husband,” and seeing nothing but the airy little
figure which stood up on tiptoe for him to kiss its lips at
parting. His work for the day was over now, and he sat
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alone in his library when Helen came hurriedly in, starting
at sight of his face, and asking if he was ill.
“I have had a hard day's work,” he said. “I am
always tired at night,” and he tried to smile and appear
natural. “Are you very lonely at the farm-house?” he
asked, and then Helen broke out afresh, mourning sometimes
for Katy, and again denouncing Wilford as proud
and heartless.
“Positively, Cousin Morris, he acted all the while he
was in the church as if he were doing something of
which he was ashamed; and then did you notice how
impatient he seemed when the neighbors were shaking
hands with Katy at the depot, and bidding her good-bye?
He looked as if he thought they had no right to touch
her, she was so much their superior, just because she had
married him, and he even hurried her away before Aunt
Betsy had time to kiss her. And yet the people think it
such a splendid match for Katy, because he is so rich
and generous. Gave the clergyman fifty dollars and the
sexton five, so I heard; but that does not help him with
me. I know it's wicked, Morris, but I find myself taking
real comfort in hating Wilford Cameron.”
“That is wrong, Helen, all wrong,” and Morris tried
to reason with her; but his arguments this time were
not very strong, and he finally said to her, inadvertently,
“If I can forgive Wilford Cameron for marrying our
Katy, you surely ought to do so, for he has hurt me the
most.”
“You, Morris! YOU, YOU!” Helen kept repeating,
standing back still further and further from him, while
strange, overwhelming thoughts passed like lightning
through her mind as she marked the pallid face, where
was written since the morning more than one line of
suffering, and saw in the brown eyes a look such as they
were not wont to wear. “Morris, tell me—tell me truly—
did you love my sister Katy?” and with an impetuous
rush Helen knelt beside him, as, laying his head upon
the table he answered,
“Yes, Helen. God forgive me if it were wrong. I
did love your sister Katy, and love her yet, and that is
the hardest to bear.”
All the tender, pitying woman was roused in Helen,
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and like a sister she smoothed the locks of damp, dark
hair, keeping a perfect silence as the strong man, no
longer able to bear up, wept like a very child. For a
time Helen felt as if bereft of reason, while earth and
sky seemed blended in one wild chaos as she thought,
“Oh, why couldn't it have been? Why didn't you tell
her in time?” and at last she said to him, “If Katy had
known it! Oh, Morris, why didn't you tell her? She
never guessed it, never! If she had—if she had,” Helen's
breath came chokingly, “I am very sure—yes, I know it
might have been!”
“Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these—it might have been.”
Morris involuntarily thought of these lines, but they
only mocked his sorrow as he answered Helen, “I doubt
if you are right; I hope you are not. Katy loved me as
her brother, nothing more, I am confident. Had she
waited till she was older, God only knows what might
have been, but now she is gone and our Father will help
me to bear, will help us both, if we ask him, as we must.”
And then, as only he could do, Morris talked with
Helen until she felt her hardness towards Wilford giving
way, while she wondered how Morris could speak so
kindly of one who was his rival.
“Not of myself could I do it,” Morris said; “but I
trust in One who says `As thy day shall thy strength be,'
and He, you know, never fails.”
There was a fresh bond of sympathy now between
Morris and Helen, and the latter needed no caution
against repeating what she had discovered. The secret
was safe with her, and by dwelling on what “might have
been” she forgot to think so much of what was, and so
the first days after Katy's departure were more tolerable
than she had thought it possible for them to be. At the
close of the fourth there came a short note from Katy,
who was still in Boston at the Revere, and perfectly
happy, she said, going into ecstasies over her husband,
the best in the world, and certainly the most generous
and indulgent. “Such beautiful things as I am having
made,” she wrote, “when I already had more than I
needed, and so I told him, but he only smiled a queer
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kind of smile as he said `Very true; you do not need
them.' I wonder then why he gets me more. Oh, I forgot
to tell you how much I like his cousin, Mrs. Harvey,
who boards at the Revere, and whom Wilford consults
about my dress. I am somewhat afraid of her, too, she
is so grand, but she pets me a great deal and laughs at
my speeches. Mr. Ray is here, and I think him splendid.
“By the way, Helen, I heard him tell Wilford that you
had one of the best shaped heads he ever saw, and that
he thought you decidedly good looking. I must tell you
now of the only thing which troubles me in the least, and
I shall get used to that, I suppose. It is so strange Wilford
never told me a word until she came. Think of little
Katy Lennox with a waiting-maid, who jabbers French
half the time, for she speaks that language as well as her
own, having been abroad with the family once before.
That is why they sent her to me; they knew her services
would be invaluable in Paris. Her name is Esther, and
she came the day after we did, and brought me such a
beautiful mantilla from Wilford's mother, and the loveliest
dress. Just the pattern was fifty dollars, she said.
“The steamer sails in three days, and I will write
again before that time, sending it by Mr. Ray, who is to
stop over one train at Linwood. Wilford has just come
in, and says I have written enough for now, but I must
tell you he has bought me a diamond pin and ear-rings,
which Esther, who knows the value of everything, says
never cost less than five hundred dollars.
“Your loving,
Katy Cameron.”
“Five hundred dollars!” and Aunt Betsy held up her
hands in horror, while Helen sat a long time with the
letter in her hand, cogitating upon its contents, and especially
upon the part referring to herself, and what
Mark Ray had said of her.
Every human heart is susceptible of flattery, and
Helen's was not an exception. Still with her ideas of city
men she could not at once think favorably of Mark Ray,
just for a few complimentary words which might or
might not have been in earnest, and she found herself
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looking forward with nervous dread to the time when he
would stop at Linwood, and of course call on her, as he
would bring a letter from Katy.
Very sadly to the inmates of the farm-house rose the
morning of the day when Katy was to sail, and as if they
could really see the tall masts of the vessel which was to
bear her away, the eyes of the whole family were turned
often to the eastward with a wistful, anxious gaze, while on
their lips and in their hearts were earnest prayers for the
safety of that ship and the precious freight it bore. But
hours, however sad, will wear themselves away, and so
the day went on, succeeded by the night, until that too
had passed and another day had come, the second of
Katy's ocean life. At the farm-house the work was all
done up, and Helen in her neat gingham dress, with her
bands of brown hair bound about her head, sat sewing,
when she was startled by the sound of wheels, and looking
up saw the boy employed to carry packages from the
express office, driving to their door with a trunk, which
he said had come that morning from Boston.
In some surprise Helen hastened to unlock it with the
key which she found appended to it. The trunk was full,
and over the whole a linen towel was folded, while on the
top of that lay a letter in Katy's hand-writing, directed
to Helen, who, sitting down upon the floor, broke the
seal and read aloud as follows:
“Boston, June —, Revere House, }
“Nearly midnight.
“My Dear Sister Helen:—I have just come in from
a little party given by one of Mrs. Harvey's friends, and
I am so tired, for you know I am not accustomed to such
late hours. The party was very pleasant indeed, and
everybody was so kind to me, especially Mr. Ray, who
stood by me all the time, and who somehow seemed to
help me, so that I knew just what to do, and was not
awkward at all. I hope not, at least for Wilford's sake.
“You do not know how grand and dignified he is here
in Boston among his own set; he is so different from
what he was in Silverton that I should be afraid of him
if I did not know how much he loves me. He shows
that in every action, and I am perfectly happy, except
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when I think that to-morrow night at this time I shall be
on the sea, going away from you all. Here it does not
seem far to Silverton, and I often look towards home,
wondering what you are doing, and if you miss me any.
I wish I could see you once before I go, just to tell you
all how much I love you—more than I ever did before, I
am sure.
“And now I come to the trunk. I know you will be
surprised at its contents, but you cannot be more so
than I was when Wilford said I must pack them up and
send them back—all the dresses you and Marion made.”
“No, oh no!” and Helen felt her strength leave her
wrists in one sudden throb as the letter dropped from
her hand, while she tore off the linen covering and saw
for herself that Katy had written truly.
She could not weep then, but her face was white as
marble as she again took up the letter and commenced
at the point where she had broken off.
“It seems that people traveling in Europe do not
need many things, but what they have must be just right,
and so Mrs. Cameron wrote for Mrs. Harvey to see to
my wardrobe, and if I had not exactly what was proper
she was to procure it. It is very funny that she did not
find a single proper garment among them all, when we
thought them so nice. They were not just the style, she
said, and that was very desirable in Mrs. Wilford Cameron.
Somehow she tries to impress me with the idea
that Mrs. Wilford Cameron is a very different person
from little Katy Lennox, but I can see no difference except
that I am a great deal happier and have Wilford
all the time.
“Well, as I was telling you, I was measured and fitted,
and my figure praised, until my head was nearly
turned, only I did not like the horrid stays they put on
me, squeezing me up and making me feel so stiff. Mrs.
Harvey says no lady does without them, expressing
much surprise that I had never worn them, and so I submit
to the powers that be; but every chance I get here
in my room I take them off and throw them on the floor,
where Wilford has stumbled over them two or three
times.
“This afternoon the dresses came home, and they do
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look beautifully, while every one has belt, and gloves,
and ribbons, and sashes, and laces or muslins to match—
fashionable people are so particular about these
things. I have tried them on, and except that I think
them too tight, they fit admirably, and do give me a different
air from what Miss Hazelton's did. But I really
believe I like the old ones best, because you helped to
make them; and when Wilford said I must send them
home, I went where he could not see me and cried, because—
well, I hardly know why I cried, unless I feared
you might feel badly. Dearest Helen, don't, will you?
I love you just as much, and shall remember you the
same as if I wore the dresses. Dearest sister, I can fancy
the look that will come on your face, and I wish I
could be present to kiss it away. Imagine me there,
will you? with my arms around your neck, and tell
mother not to mind. Tell her I never loved her so well
as now, and that when I come home from Europe I shall
bring her ever so many things. There is a new black
silk for her in the trunk, and one for each of the aunties,
while for you there is a lovely brown, which Wilford said
was just your style, telling me to select as nice a silk as I
pleased, and this he did, I think, because he guessed I
had been crying. He asked what made my eyes so red,
and when I would not tell him he took me with him to
the silk store and bade me get what I liked. Oh, he
is the dearest, kindest husband, and I love him all the
more because I am the least bit afraid of him.
“And now I must stop, for Wilford says so. Dear
Helen, dear all of you, I can't help crying as I say good-bye.
Remember little Katy, and if she ever did anything
bad, don't lay it up against her. Kiss Morris and
Uncle Ephraim, and say how much I love them. Darling
sister, darling mother, good-bye.”
This was Katy's letter, and it brought a gush of tears
from the four women remembered so lovingly in it, the
mother and the aunts stealing away to weep in secret,
without ever stopping to look at the new dresses sent to
them by Wilford Cameron. They were very soft, very
handsome, especially Helen's rich golden brown, and as
she looked at it she felt a thrill of satisfaction in knowing
it was hers, but this quickly passed as she took out one
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by one the garments she had folded with so much care,
wondering when Katy would wear each one and where
she would be.
“She will never wear them, never—they are not fine
enough for her now!” she exclaimed, and as she just
then came upon the little plaid, she laid her head upon
the trunk lid, while her tears dropped like rain in among
the discarded articles condemned by Wilford Cameron.
It seemed to her like Katy's grave, and she was sobbing
bitterly, when a step sounded outside the window,
and a voice called her name. It was Morris, and lifting
up her head Helen said passionately,
“Oh, Morris, look! he has sent back all Katy's clothes,
which you bought and I worked so hard to make. They
were not good enough for his wife to wear, and so he insulted
us. Oh, Katy, I never fully realized till now how
wholly she is lost to us!”
“Helen, Helen,” Morris kept saying, trying to stop her,
for close behind him was Mark Ray, who heard her distinctly,
and glancing in, saw her kneeling before the
trunk, her pale face stained with tears, and her dark
eyes shining with excitement.
Mark Ray understood it at once, feeling indignant at
Wilford for thus unnecessarily wounding the sensitive
girl, whose expression, as she sat there upon the floor,
with her face upturned to Morris, haunted him for
months. Mark was sorry for her—so sorry that his first
impulse was to go quietly away, and so spare her the
mortification of knowing that he had witnessed that little
scene; but it was now too late. As she finished
speaking her eye fell on him, and coloring scarlet she
struggled to her feet, and covering her face with her
hands wept still more violently. Mark was in a dilemma,
and whispered softly to Morris, “I think I will leave.
You can tell her all I had to say;” but Helen heard him,
and mastering her agitation she said to him,
“Please, Mr. Ray, don't go—not yet at least, not till I
have asked you of Katy. Did you see her off? Has she
gone?”
Thus importuned Mark Ray came in, and sitting down
where his boot almost touched the new brown silk, he
very politely began to answer her rapid questions,
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putting her entirely at her ease by his pleasant, affable
manner, and making her forget the littered appearance
of the room, as she listened to his praises of her sister,
who, he said, seemed so very happy, and attracted universal
admiration wherever she went. No allusion whatever
was made to the trunk during the time of Mark's
stay, which was not long. If he took the next train to
New York, he had but an hour more to spend, and feeling
that Helen would rather he should spend it at Linwood
he soon arose to go. Offering his hand to Helen,
there passed from his eyes into hers a look which had
over her a strangely quieting influence, and prepared her
for a remark which otherwise might have seemed out of
place.
“I have known Wilford Cameron for years; he is my
best friend, and I respect him as a brother. In some
things he may be peculiar, but he will make your sister a
kind husband. He loves her devotedly, I know, choosing
her from the throng of ladies who would gladly have
taken her place. I hope you will like him for my sake as
well as Katy's.”
His warm hand unclasped from Helen's, and with
another good-bye he was gone, without seeing either
Mrs. Lennox, Aunt Hannah or Aunt Betsy. This was
not the time for extending his acquaintance, he knew,
and he went away with Morris, feeling that the farm-house,
so far as he could judge, was not exactly what
Wilford had pictured it. But then he came for a wife,
and I did not,” he thought, while Helen's face came before
him as it looked up to Morris, and he wondered,
were he obliged to choose between the sisters, which he
should prefer. During the few days passed in Boston he
had become more than half in love with Katy himself,
almost envying his friend the pretty little creature he
had won. She was very beautiful and very fascinating
in her simplicity, but there was something in Helen's
face more attractive than mere beauty, and Mark said to
Morris as they walked along,
“Miss Lennox is not much like her sister.”
“Not much, no; but Helen is a splendid girl—more
strength of character, perhaps, than Katy, who is
younger than her years even. She has always been
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petted from babyhood; it will take time or some great
sorrow to show what she really is.”
This was Morris's reply, and the two then proceeded
on in silence until they reached the boundary line between
Morris's farm and Uncle Ephraim's, where they
found the deacon mending a bit of broken fence, his coat
lying on a pile of stones, and his wide, blue cotton
trowsers hanging loosely around him. When told who
Mark was, and that he brought news of Katy, he greeted
him cordially, and sitting down upon his fence listened to
all Mark had to say. Between the old and young man
there seemed at once a mutual liking, the former saying
to himself as Mark went on, and he resumed his work,
“I most wish it was this chap with Katy on the sea. I
like his looks the best,” while Mark's thoughts were,
“Will need not be ashamed of that man, though I don't
suppose I should really want him coming suddenly in
among a drawing-room full of guests.”
Morris did not feel much like entertaining Mark, but
Mark was fully competent to entertain himself, and
thought the hour spent at Linwood a very pleasant one,
half wishing for some excuse to tarry longer; but there
was none, and so at the appointed time he bade Morris
good-bye and went on his way to New York.
CHAPTER XII. FIRST MONTHS OF MARRIED LIFE.
IF Katy's letters, written, one on board the
steamer and another from London, were to be
trusted, she was as nearly perfectly happy as a
young bride well can be, and the people at the
farm-house felt themselves more and more kindly disposed
towards Wilford Cameron with each letter received.
They were going soon into the northern part of England,
and from thence into Scotland, Katy wrote from London,
and two weeks after found them comfortably settled at
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the inn at Alnwick, near to Alnwick Castle. Wilford had
seemed very anxious to get there, leaving London before
Katy was quite ready, and hurrying across the country
until Alnwick was reached. He had been there before,
years ago, he said, but no one seemed to recognize him,
though all paid due respect to the distinguished looking
American and his beautiful young wife. An entrance into
Alnwick Castle was easily obtained, and Katy felt that
all her girlish dreams of grandeur and magnificence were
more than relized here in this home of the Percys, where
ancient and modern styles of architecture and furnishing
were so blended together. She would never tire of that
place, she thought, but Wilford's taste led him elsewhere,
and he took more delight in wandering around St.
Mary's church, which stood upon a hill commanding a
view of the castle and of the surrounding country for
miles away. Here Katy also came, rambling with him
through the village grave-yard where slept the dust of
centuries, the grey, mossy tomb-stones bearing date
backward for more than a hundred years, their quaint
inscriptions both puzzling and amusing Katy, who studied
them by the hour.
One quiet summer morning, however, when the heat
was unusually great, she felt too listless to wander about,
and so sat upon the grass, listening to the birds as they
sang above her head, while Wilford, at some distance
from her, stood leaning against a tree and thinking sad,
regretful thoughts, as his eye rested upon the rough
headstone at his feet.
“Genevra Lambert, aged 22,” was the lettering upon
it, and as he read it a feeling of reproach was in his heart,
while he said, “I hope I am not glad to know that she is
dead.”
He had come to Alnwick for the sole purpose of finding
that humble grave—of assuring himself that after life's
fitful fever, Genevra Lambert slept quietly, forgetful
of the wrong once done to her by him. It is true he had
not doubted her death before, but as seeing was believing,
so now he felt sure of it, and plucking from the turf
above her a little flower growing there, he went back to
Katy and sitting down beside her with his arm around
her waist, tried to devise some way of telling her what
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he had promised himself he would tell her there in that
very yard, where Genevra was buried. But the task was
harder now than before. Katy was so happy with him,
trusting his love so fully that he dared not lift the veil
and read to her that page hinted at once in Silverton,
when they sat beneath the butternut tree, with the
fresh young grass springing around them. Then she
was not his wife, and the fear that she would not be if he
told her all had kept him silent, but now she was his
alone; nothing could undo that, and there, in the shadow
of the grey old church through whose aisles Genevra had
been borne out to where the rude headstone was gleaming
in the English sunlight, it seemed meet that he
should tell the sad story. And Katy would have forgiven
him then, for not a shadow of regret had darkened
her life since it was linked with his, and in her perfect
love she could have pardoned much. But Wilford did
not tell. It was not needful, he made himself believe—
not necessary for her ever to know that once he met a
maiden called Genevra, almost as beautiful as she, but
never so beloved. No, never. Wilford said that truly,
when that night he bent over his sleeping Katy, comparing
her face with Genevra's, and his love for her with his
love for Genevra.
Wilford was very fond of his girlish wife, and very
proud of her, too, when strangers paused, as they often
did, to look back after her. Thus far nothing had arisen
to mar the happiness of his first weeks of married life,
except the letters from Silverton, over which Katy always
cried, until he sometimes wished that the family could
not write. But they could and they did; even Aunt
Betsy inclosed in Helen's letter a note, wonderful both
in orthography and composition, and concluding with
the remark that “she would be glad when Catherine returned
and was settled in a home of her own, as she
would then have a new place to visit.”
There was a dark frown on Wilford's face, and for a
moment he felt tempted to withhold the note from Katy,
but this he could not do then, so he gave it into her
hands, watching her as with burning cheeks, she read it
through, and asking her at its close why she looked so
red.
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“Oh, Wilford,” and she crept closely to him, “Aunt
Betsy spells so queerly, that I was wishing you would
not always open my letters first. Do all husbands do
so?”
It was the only time Katy had ventured to question a
single act of his, submitting without a word to whatever
was his will. Wilford knew that his father would never
have presumed to break a seal belonging to his mother,
but he had broken Katy's, and he should continue breaking
them, so he answered, laughingly,
“Why, yes, I guess they do. My little wife has surely
no secrets to hide from me?”
“No secrets,” Katy answered, “only I did not want
you to see Aunt Betsy's letter, that's all.”
“I did not marry Aunt Betsy—I married you,” was
Wilford's reply, which meant far more than Katy guessed.
With three thousand miles between him and his wife's
relatives, Wilford could endure to think of them; but
whenever letters came to Katy bearing the Silverton
postmark, he was conscious of a far different sensation
from what he experienced when the postmark was New
York and the handwriting that of his own family. But
not in any way did this feeling manifest itself to Katy,
who, as she always wrote to Helen, was very, very happy,
and never more so, perhaps, than while they were at Alnwick,
where, as if he had something for which to atone,
he was unusually kind and indulgent, caressing her with
unwonted tenderness, and making her ask him once if he
loved her a great deal more now than when they were
first married.
“Yes, darling, a great deal more,” was Wilford's answer,
as he kissed her upturned face, and then went for the
last time to Genevra's grave; for on the morrow they
were to leave the neighborhood of Alnwick for the
heather blooms of Scotland.
There was a trip to Edinburgh, a stormy passage
across the Straits of Dover, a two months' sojourn in
Paris, and then they went to Rome, where Wilford intended
to pass the winter, journeying in the spring
through different parts of Europe. He was in no haste
to return to America; he would rather stay where he
could have Katy all to himself, away from her family and
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his own. But it was not so to be, and not very long
after his arrival at Rome there came a letter from his
mother apprising him of his father's dangerous illness,
and asking him to come home at once. The elder Cameron
had not been well since Wilford left the country,
and the physician was fearful that the disease had assumed
a consumptive form, Mrs. Cameron wrote, adding that
her husband's only anxiety was to see his son again. To
this there was no demur, and about the first of December,
six months from the time he had sailed, Wilford arrived
in Boston, having taken a steamer for that city. His
first act was to telegraph for news of his father, receiving
in reply that he was better; the alarming symptoms
had disappeared, and there was now great hope of his
recovery.
“We might have stayed longer in Europe,” Katy said,
feeling a little chill of disappointment—not that her
father-in-law was better, but at being called home for
nothing, when her life abroad was so happy and free
from care.
Somehow the atmosphere of America seemed different
from what it used to be. It was colder, bluer, the little
lady said, tapping her foot uneasily and looking from her
windows at the Revere out upon the snowy streets,
through which the wintry wind was blowing in heavy
gales.
“Yes, it is a heap colder,” she sighed, as she returned
to the large chair which Esther had drawn for her before
the cheerful fire, charging her disquiet to the weather,
but never dreaming of imputing it to her husband, who
was far more its cause than was the December cold.
He, too, though glad of his father's improvement, was
sorry to have been recalled for nothing to a country
which brought his old life back again, with all its forms
and ceremonies, and revived his dread lest Katy should
not acquit herself as was becoming Mrs. Wilford Cameron.
In his selfishness he had kept her almost wholly to
himself, so that the polish she was to acquire from her
travels abroad was not as perceptible as he could desire.
Katy was Katy still, in spite of London, Paris, or Rome.
To be sure there was about her a little more maturity
and self-assurance, but in all essential points she was
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the same: and Wilford winced as he thought how the
free, impulsive manner which, among the Scottish hills,
where there was no one to criticise, had been so charming
to him, would shock his lady mother and sister Juno.
And this it was which made him moody and silent, replying
hastily to Katy when she said to him, “Please, Wilford,
telegraph to Helen to be with mother at the West
depot when we pass there to-morrow. The train stops
five minutes, you know, and I want to see them so much.
Will you, Wilford?”
She had come up to him now, and was standing behind
him, with her hands upon his shoulder; so she did
not see the expression of his face as he answered quickly,
“Yes, yes.”
A moment after he quitted the room, and it was then
that Katy, standing before the window, charged the day
with what was strictly Wilford's fault. Returning at
last to her chair she went off into a reverie as to the new
home to which she was going and the new friends she
was to meet, wondering what they would think of her,
and if they would like her. Once she had said to Wilford,
“Which of your sisters shall I like best?”
And Wilford had answered her by asking,
“Which do you like best, books or going to parties in
full dress?”
“Oh, parties and dress,” Katy had said, and Wilford
had then rejoined,
“You will like Juno best, for she is all fashion and
gayety, while Blue-Bell prefers her books and the quiet
of her own room.”
Katy felt afraid of Bell, and in fact, now that they
were so near, she felt afraid of them all, notwithstanding
Esther's assurances that they could not help loving her.
During the six months they had been together Esther
had learned to feel for her young lady that strong affection
which sometimes exists between mistress and servant.
Everything which she could do for her she did,
smoothing as much as possible the meeting which she
also dreaded, for though the Camerons were too proud
to express before her their opinion of Wilford's choice,
she had guessed it readily, and pitied the young wife
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brought up with ideas so different from those of her
husband's family. More accustomed to Wilford's moods
than Katy, she saw that something was the matter, and
it prompted her to unusual attentions, stirring the fire
into a cheerful blaze and bringing a stool for Katy, who,
in blissful ignorance of her husband's real feelings, sat
waiting his return from the telegraph office whither she
supposed he had gone, and building pleasant pictures of
to-morrow's meeting with her mother and Helen, and
possibly Dr. Morris, if not Uncle Ephraim himself.
So absorbed was she in her reverie as not to hear
Wilford's step as he came in, but when he stood behind
her and took her head playfully between his hands, she
started up, feeling that the weather had changed; it was
not as cold and dreary in Boston as she imagined, and
laying her head on Wilford's shoulder, she said,
“You went out to telegraph, didn't you?”
He had gone out with the intention of telegraphing as
she desired, but in the hall below he had met with an
old acquaintance who talked with him so long that he
entirely forgot his errand until Katy recalled it to his
mind, making him feel very uncomfortable as he frankly
told her of his forgetfulness.
“It is too late now,” he added; “besides you could
only see them for a moment, just long enough to make
you cry—a thing I do not greatly desire, inasmuch as I
wish my wife to look her best when I present her to my
family, and with red eyes she couldn't, you know.”
Katy knew it was settled, and choking back the tears,
she tried to listen, while Wilford, having fairly broken
the ice with regard to his family, told her how anxious
he was that she should make a good first impression
upon his mother. Did Katy remember that Mrs. Morey
whom they met at Paris, and could she not throw a little
of her air into her manner, that is, could she not drop
her girlishness when in the presence of others and be a
little more dignified? When alone with him he liked to
have her just what she was, a loving, affectionate little
wife, but the world looked on such things differently.
Would Katy try?
Wilford when he commenced had no definite idea as
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to what he should say, and without meaning it he made
Katy moan piteously.
“I don't know what you mean. I would do anything
if I knew how. Tell me, how shall I be dignified?”
She was crying so hard that Wilford, while mentally
calling himself a fool and a brute, could only try to comfort
her, telling her she need not be anything but what
she was—that his mother and sisters would love her just
as he did—and that daily association with them would
teach her all that was necessary.
Katy's tears were stopped at last; but the frightened,
anxious look did not leave her face, even though Wilford
tried his best to divert her mind. A nervous terror of
her new relations had gained possession of her heart,
and nearly the entire night she lay awake, pondering in
her mind what Wilford had said, and thinking how terrible
it would be if he should be disappointed in her
after all. The consequence of this was that a very white
tired face sat opposite Wilford next morning at the breakfast
served in their private parlor; nor did it look much
fresher even after they were in the cars and rolling out of
Boston. But when Worcester was reached, and the old
home way-marks began to grow familiar, the color came
stealing back, until the cheeks burned with an unnatural
red, and the blue eyes fairly danced as they rested on the
hills of Silverton.
“Only three miles from mother and Helen! Oh, if I
could go there!” Katy thought, working her fingers nervously;
but the express train did not pause there, and it
went so swiftly by the depot that Katy could hardly distinguish
who was standing there, whether friend or stranger.
But when at last they came to West Silverton, and the
long train slowly stopped, the first object she saw was
Dr. Morris, driving down from the village. He had no
intention of going to the depot, and only checked his
horse a moment, lest it should prove restive if too near
the engine; but when a clear young voice called from the
window, “Morris! oh, Cousin Morris! I've come!” his
heart gave a great throb, for he knew whose voice it was
and whose the little hand beckoning to him. He had
supposed her far away beneath Italian skies, for at the
farm-house no intelligence had been received of her
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intended return, and in much surprise he reined up to the
rear door, and throwing his lines to a boy, went forward
to where Katy stood, her face glowing with delight as
she flew into his arms, wholly forgetful of the last night's
lecture on dignity, and also forgetful of Wilford, standing
close beside her. He had not tried to hold her back
when, at the sight of Morris, she sprang away from him;
but he followed after, biting his lip, and wishing she had
a little more discretion. Surely it was not necessary to
half strangle Dr. Grant as she was doing, kissing his
hand after she had kissed his face a full half dozen times,
and all the people looking on. But Katy did not care
for people. She only knew that Morris was there—the
Morris whom, in her great happiness abroad, she had
perhaps slighted by not writing directly to him but once.
In Wilford's sheltering care she had not felt the need of
this good cousin, as she used to do; but she was so glad
to see him, wondering why he looked so thin and sad.
Was he sick? she asked, with a pitying look, which made
him shiver as he answered,
“No, not sick, though tired, perhaps, as I have at
present an unusual amount of work to do.”
And this was true—he was unusually busy. But that
was not the cause of his thin face, which others than
Katy remarked. Helen's words, “It might have been,”
spoken to him on the night of Katy's bridal, had
never left his mind, much as he had tried to dislodge
them. Some men can love a dozen times; but it was not
so with Morris. He could overcome his love so that it
should not be a sin, but no other could ever fill the place
where Katy had been; and as he looked along the road
through life he felt that he must travel it alone. Truly,
if Katy were not yet passing through the fire, he was,
and it had left its mark upon him, purifying as it burned,
and bringing his every act into closer submission to his
God. Only Helen and Marian Hazelton interpreted
aright that look upon his face, and knew it came from the
hunger of his heart, but they kept silence; while others
said that he was working far too hard, urging him to
abate his unwearied labors, for they would not lose their
young physician yet. But Morris smiled his patient,
kindly smile on all their fears and went his way, doing
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his work as one who knew he must render strict account
for the popularity he was daily gaining, both in his
own town and those around. He could think of Katy
now without a sin, but he was not thinking of her when
she came so unexpectedly upon him, and for an instant
she almost bore his breath away in her vehement joy.
Quick to note a change in those he knew, he saw that
her form was not quite so full, nor her cheeks so round;
but she was weary with the voyage, and knowing how
sea-sickness will wear upon one's strength, Morris imputed
it wholly to that, and believed she was, as she professed
to be, perfectly happy.
“Come, Katy, we must go now,” Wilford said, as the
bell rang its first alarm, and the passengers, some with
sandwiches and some with fried cakes in their hands, ran
back to find their seats.
“Yes, I know, but I have not asked half I meant to.
Oh, how I want to go home with you, Morris,” Katy exclaimed,
again throwing her arms around the doctor's
neck as she bade him good bye, and sent fresh messages
of love to the friends at home, who, had they known she
was to be there at that time, would have walked the
entire distance for the sake of looking once more into
her dear face.
“I intended to have brought them heaps of things,”
she said, “but we came home so suddenly I had no time.
Here, take Helen this. Tell her it is real,” and the impulsive
creature drew from her finger a small diamond
set in black enamel, which Wilford had bought in Paris.
“She did not need it; she had two more, and she was
sure Wilford would not mind,” she said, turning to him
for his approbation.
But Wilford did mind, and his face indicated as much,
although he tried to be natural as he replied, “Certainly,
send it if you like.”
In her excitement Katy did not observe it, but Morris
did, and he at first declined taking it, saying Helen had
no use for it, and would be better pleased with something
not half as valuable. Katy, however, insisted, appealing
to Wilford, who, ashamed of his first emotion, now
seemed quite as anxious as Katy herself, until Morris
placed the ring in his purse, and then bade Katy hasten
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or she would certainly be left. One more wave of the
hand, one more kiss thrown from the window, and the
train moved on, Katy feeling like a different creature for
having seen some one from home.
“I am so glad I saw him — so glad I sent the ring, for
now they will know I am the same Katy Lennox, and
I think Helen sometimes feared I might get proud with
you,” she said, while Wilford pulled her rich fur around
her, smiling to see how bright and pretty she was looking
since that meeting with Dr. Grant. “It was better
than medicine,” Katy said, when beyond Springfield he
referred to it a second time, and leaning her head upon
his shoulder she fell into a refreshing sleep, from which
she did not waken until New York was reached, and Wilford,
lifting her gently up, whispered to her, “Come,
darling, we are home at last.”
CHAPTER XIII. KATY'S FIRST EVENING IN NEW YORK.
THE elder Cameron was really better, and more
than once he had regretted recalling his son, who
he knew had contemplated a longer stay abroad.
But that could not now be helped. Wilford had
arrived in Boston, as his telegram of yesterday announced—
he would be at home to-day; and No.— Fifth Avenue
was all the morning and a portion of the afternoon the
scene of unusual excitement, for both Mrs. Cameron and
her daughters wished to give the six months wife a good
impression of her new home. At first they thought of
inviting company to dinner, but to this the father objected.
“Katy should not be troubled the first day,”
he said; “it was bad enough for her to meet them all;
they could ask Mark if they chose, but no one else.”
And so only Mark Ray was invited to the dinner, gotten
up as elaborately as if a princess had been expected
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instead of little Katy, trembling in every joint when,
about four P. M., Wilford awoke her at the depot and
whispered, “Come, darling, we are home at last.”
“Why do you shiver so?” he asked, wrapping her
cloak around her, and almost lifting her from the car.
“I don't—know. I guess—I'm cold,” and Katy drew
a long breath as she thought of Silverton and the farm-house,
wishing that she was going into its low-walled
kitchen, instead of the handsome carriage, where the
cushions were so soft and yielding, and the whole effect
so grand.
“What would our folks say?” she kept repeating to
herself as she drove along the streets, where they were
beginning to light the street lamps, for the December
day was dark and cloudy. It seemed so like a dream,
that she, who once had picked huckleberries on the Silverton
hills, and bound coarse heavy shoes to buy herself
a pink gingham dress, should now be riding in her
carriage toward the home which she knew was magnificent;
and Katy's tears fell like rain as, nestling close to
Wilford, who asked what was the matter, she whispered,
“I can hardly believe that it is I—it is so unreal.”
“Please don't cry,” Wilford rejoined, brushing her
tears away. “You know I don't like your eyes to be
red.”
With a great effort Katy kept her tears back, and was
very calm when they reached the brown-stone front, far
enough up town to save it from the slightest approach
to plebeianism. In the hall the chandelier was burning,
and as the carriage stopped a flame of light seemed suddenly
to burst from every window as the gas heads were
turned up, so that Katy caught glimpses of rich silken curtains
and costly lace as she went up the steps, clinging
to Wilford and looking ruefully around for Esther, who
had disappeared through the basement door. Another
moment and they stood within the marbled hall, Katy
conscious of nothing definite—nothing but a vague atmosphere
of refined elegance, and that a richly-dressed
lady came out to meet them, kissing Wilford quietly and
calling him her son; that the same lady turned to her
saying kindly, “And this is my new daughter?”
Then Katy came to life, and did that, at the very
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thought of which she shuddered when a few months' experience
had taught her the temerity of the act—she
wound her arms impulsively around Mrs. Cameron's neck,
rumpling her point lace collar, and sadly displacing the
coiffure of the astonished lady, who had seldom received
so genuine a greeting as that which Katy gave her, kissing
her lips and whispering softly, “I love you now, because
you are Wilford's mother, but by and by because
you are mine. And you will love me some because I am
his wife.”
Wilford was horrified, particularly when he saw how
startled his mother looked as she tried to release herself
and adjust her tumbled head-gear. It was not what he
had hoped, nor what his mother had expected, for she
was unaccustomed to such demonstrations; but under
the circumstances Katy could not have done better.
There was a tender spot in Mrs. Cameron's heart, and
Katy touched it, making her feel a throb of affection for
the childish creature suing for her love.
“Yes, darling, I love you now,” she said, removing
Katy's clinging arms and taking care that they should
not enfold her a second time. “You are tired and
cold,” she continued; “and had better go at once to your
rooms. I will send Esther up. There is plenty of time
to dress for dinner,” and with a wave of her hand she
dismissed Katy up the stairs, noticing as she went the
exquisite softness of her fur cloak; but thinking it too
heavy a garment for her slight figure, and noticing, too,
the graceful ankle and foot which the little high-heeled
gaiter showed to good advantage. “I did not see her
face distinctly, but she has a well-turned instep and
walks easily,” was the report she carried to her daughters,
who, in their own room over Katy's, were dressing
for dinner.
“She will undoubtedly make a good dancer, then, unless,
like Dr. Grant, she is too blue for that,” Juno said,
while Bell shrugged her shoulders, congratulating herself
that she had a mind above such frivolous matters as
dancing and well-turned insteps, and wondering if Katy
cared in the least for books.
“Couldn't you see her face at all, mother?” Juno
asked.
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“Scarcely; but the glimpse I did get was satisfactory.
I think she is pretty.”
And this was all the sisters could ascertain until their
toilets were finished, and they went down into the library
where their brother waited for them, kissing them
both affectionately, and complimenting them on their
good looks.
“I wish we could say the same of you,” Juno answered,
playfully pulling his moustache; “but upon my word,
Will, you are fast setting down into an oldish married
man, even turning grey,” and she ran her fingers through
his dark hair, where there was now and then a thread of
silver. “Disappointed in your domestic relations, eh?”
she continued, looking him archly in the face.
Wilford was rather proud of his good looks, and during
his sojourn abroad, Katy had not helped him any in
overcoming this weakness, but on the contrary had fed
his vanity by constant flattery. And still he was himself
conscious of not looking quite as well as usual just now,
for the sea voyage had tired him as well as Katy, but he
did not care to be told of it, and Juno's ill-timed remarks
roused him at once, particularly as they reflected somewhat
on Katy.
“I assure you I am not disappointed,” he answered,
“and the six months of my married life have been the
happiest I ever knew. Katy is more than I expected
her to be.”
Juno elevated her eyebrows slightly, but made no direct
reply, while Bell began to ask about Paris and the
places he had visited.
Meanwhile Katy had been ushered into her room,
which was directly over the library, and separated from
Mrs. Cameron's only by a range of closets and presses, a
portion of which were to be appropriated to her own use.
Great pains had been taken to make her rooms attractive,
and as the large bay window in the library below extended
to the third story, it was really the pleasantest
chamber in the house. To Katy it was perfect, and her
first exclamation was one of delight.
“Oh, how pleasant, how beautiful!” she cried, skipping
across the soft carpet to the warm fire blazing in the
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grate. “A bay window, too, when I like them so much.
I shall be happy here.”
But happy as she was, Katy could not help feeling
tired, and she sank into one of the luxurious easy-chairs,
wishing she could stay there all the evening instead of
going down to that formidable dinner with her new relations.
How she dreaded it, especially when she remembered
that Mrs. Cameron had said there would be plenty
of time to dress—a thing which Katy hated, the process
was so tiresome, particularly to-night. Surely her handsome
traveling dress, made in Paris, was good enough,
and she was about settling in her own mind to venture
upon wearing it, when Esther demolished her castle at
once.
“Wear your traveling habit!” she exclaimed, “when
the young ladies, especially Miss Juno, are so particular
about their dinner costume. There would be no end to
the scolding I should get for suffering it,” and she began
good-naturedly to remove her mistress's collar and pin,
while Katy, standing up, sighed as she said, “I wish
I was in Silverton to-night. I could wear anything
there. What must I put on? How I dread it!” and
she began to shiver again.
Fortunately for Katy, Esther had been in the family
long enough to know just what they regarded proper,
as by this means the dress selected was sure to please.
It was very becoming to Katy, and having been made in
Paris was not open to criticism.
“Very pretty indeed,” was Mrs. Cameron's verdict,
when at half-past five she came in to see her daughter,
kissing her cheek and stroking her head, wholly unadorned
except by the short, silken curls which could not
be coaxed to grow faster than they chose, and which had
sometimes annoyed Wilford, they made his wife seem so
young beside him. Mrs. Cameron was annoyed too, for
she had no idea of a head except as it was connected
with a hair-dresser, and her annoyance showed itself as
she asked,
“Did you have your hair cut on purpose?”
But when Katy explained, she answered pleasantly,
“Never mind, it is a fault which will mend every day,
only it makes you look like a child.”
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“I am eighteen and a half,” Katy said, feeling a lump
rising in her throat, for she guessed that her mother-in-law
was not quite pleased with her hair.
For herself, she liked it, it was so easy to brush and
fix. She should go wild if she had to submit to all
Esther had told her of hair-dressing and what it involved.
Mrs. Cameron had asked if she would not like to see
Mr. Cameron, the elder, before going down to dinner,
and Katy had answered that she would; so as soon as
Esther had smoothed a refractory fold and brought her
handkerchief, she followed to the room where Wilford's
father was sitting. He might not have felt complimented
could he have known that something in his appearance
reminded Katy of Uncle Ephraim. He was
not nearly as old or as tall, nor was his hair as white,
but the resemblance, if there were any, lay in the smile
with which he greeted Katy, calling her his youngest
child, and drawing her closely to him.
It was remarked of Mr. Cameron that since their babyhood
he had never kissed one of his own children; but
when Katy, who looked upon such a salutation as a matter
of course, put up her rosy lips, making the first advance,
he kissed her twice. Hearty, honest kisses they
were, for the man was strongly drawn towards the
young girl, who said to him timidly,
“I am glad to have a father—mine died before I could
remember him. May I call you so?”
“Yes, yes; God bless you, my child,” and Mr. Cameron's
voice shook as he said it, for neither Bell nor Juno
were wont to address him just as Katy did—Katy, standing
close to him, with her hand upon his shoulder and
her kiss fresh upon his lips.
She had already crept a long way into his heart, and
he took her hand from his shoulder and holding it between
his own, said to her.
“I did not think you were so small or young. You
are my little daughter, my baby, instead of my son's
wife. How do you ever expect to fulfill the duties of
Mrs. Wilford Cameron?”
“It's my short hair, sir. I am not so young,” Katy
answered, her eyes filling with tears as she began to
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wish back the thick curls Helen cut away when the fever
was at its height.
“Never mind, child,” Mr. Cameron rejoined playfully.
“Youth is no reproach; there's many a one would give
their right hand to be young like you. Juno for instance,
who is—”
“Hus-band!” came reprovingly from Mrs. Cameron,
spoken as only she could syeak it, with a prolonged buzzing
sound on the first syllable, and warning the husband
that he was venturing too far.
“It is time to go down if Mrs. Cameron sees the
young ladies before dinner,” she said, a little stiffly;
whereupon her better half startled Katy with the exclamation,
“Mrs. Cameron! Thunder and lightning! wife, call
her Katy, and don't go into any nonsense of that
kind.”
The lady reddened, but said nothing until she reached
the hall, when she whispered to Katy, apologetically,
“Don't mind it. He is rather irritable since his illness,
and sometimes makes use of coarse language.”
Katy had been a little frightened at the outburst, but
she liked Mr. Cameron notwithstanding, and her heart
was lighter as she went down to the library, where Wilford
met her at the door, and taking her on his arm led
her in to his sisters, holding her back as he presented
her, lest she should assault them as she had his mother.
But Katy felt no desire to hug the tall, queenly girl
whom Wilford introduced as Juno, and whose black eyes
seemed to read her through as she offered her hand and
very daintily kissed her forehead, murmuring something
about a welcome to New York. Bell came next,
broad-faced, plainer-looking Bell, who yet had many
pretentions to beauty, but whose manner, if possible, was
frostier, cooler than her sister's. Of the two Katy liked
Juno best, for there was about her a flash and sparkle
very fascinating to one who had never seen anything of
the kind, and did not know that much of this vivacity
was the result of patient study and practice. Katy
would have known they were high bred, as the world
defines high breeding, and something in ther manner
reminded her of the ladies she had seen abroad, ladies
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in whose veins lordly blood was flowing. She could not
help feeling uncomfortable in their presence, especially
as she felt that Juno's black eyes were on her constantly.
Not that she could ever meet them looking at her,
for they darted away the instant hers were raised, but
she knew just when they returned to her again, and how
closely they were scanning her.
“Your wife looks tired, Will. Let her sit down,” Bell
said, herself wheeling the easy-chair nearer to the fire,
while Wilford placed Katy in it; then, thinking she
would get on better if he were not there, he left the
room, and Katy was alone with her new sisters.
Juno had examined her dress and found no fault with
it, simply because it was Parisian make; while Bell had
examined her head, deciding that there might be something
in it, though she doubted it, but that at all events
short hair was very becoming to it, showing all its fine
proportions, and half deciding to have her own locks
cut away. Juno had a similar thought, wondering if it
were the Paris fashion, and if she would look as young in
proportion as Katy did were her hair worn on her neck.
With their brother's departure the tongues of both the
girls were loosened, and standing near to Katy they began
to question her of what she had seen, Juno asking if
she did not hate to leave Italy, and did not wish herself
back again. Wholly truthful, Katy answered, “Oh, yes,
I would rather be there than home.”
“Complimentary to us, very,” Bell murmured audibly
in French, blushing as Katy's eyes were lifted quickly to
hers, and she knew she was understood.
If there was anything which Katy liked more than
another in the way of study, it was French. She had
excelled in it at Canandaigua, and while abroad had
taken great pains to acquire a pure pronunciation, so
that she spoke it with a good deal of fluency, and readily
comprehended Bell.
“I did not mean to be rude,” she said, earnestly. “I
liked Italy so much, and we expected to stay longer; but
that does not hinder my liking to be here. I hope I did
not offend you.”
“Certainly not; you are an honest little puss,” Bell
replied, placing her hand caressingly upon the curly head
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laying back so wearily on the chair. “Here in New
York we have a bad way of not telling the whole truth,
but you will soon be used to it.”
“Used to not telling the truth! Oh, I hope not!”
and this time the blue eyes lifted so wonderingly to Bell's
face had in them a startled look.
“Simpleton!” was Juno's mental comment, while Bell's
was, “I like the child,” as she continued to smooth the
golden curls and wind them round her finger, wondering
if Katy had a taste for metaphysics, that being the
last branch of science which she had taken up.
“I suppose you find Will a pattern husband,” Juno
said after a moment's pause, and Katy replied, “There
never could be a better, I am sure, and I have been very
happy.”
“Has he never said one cross word to you in all these
six months?” was Juno's next question, to which Katy
answered truthfully, “Never.”
“And lets you do as you please?”
“Yes, just as I please,” Katy replied, while Juno continued,
“He must have changed greatly then from what
he used to be; but marriage has probably improved him.
He tells you all his secrets, too, I presume?”
Anxious that Wilford should appear well in every light,
Katy replied at random, “Yes, if he has any.”
“Well, then,” and in Juno's black eyes there was a
wicked look, “perhaps you will tell me who was or is the
original of that picture he guards so carefully.”
“What picture?” and Katy looked up inquiringly,
while Juno, with a little sarcastic laugh, continued: “Oh,
he has not told you then. I thought he would not, he
was so angry when he saw me with it three or four years
ago. I found it in his room where he had accidentally
left it, and was looking at it when he came in. It was
the picture of a young girl who must have been very
beautiful, and I did not blame Will for loving her if he
ever did, but he need not have been so indignant at me
for wishing to know who it was. I never saw him so
angry or so much disturbed. I hope you will ferret the
secret out and tell me, for I have a great deal of curiosity,
fancying that picture had something to do with
his remaining so long a bachelor. I do not mean that
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he does not love you,” she added, as she saw how white
Katy grew. “It is not to be expected that a man can live
to be thirty without loving more than one. There was
Sybil Grey, a famous belle, whom I thought at one time
he would marry; but when Judge Grandon offered she
accepted, and Will was left in the lurch. I do not really
believe he cared though, for Sybil was too much of a flirt
to suit his jealous lordship, and I will do him the justice
to say that however many fancies he may have had, he
likes you the best of all;” and this Juno felt constrained
to say because of the look in Katy's face, which warned
her that in her thoughtlessness she had gone too far and
pierced the young wife's heart with a pang as cruel as it
was unnecessary.
Bell had tried to stop her, but she had rattled on until
now it was too late, and she could not recall her words,
however much she might wish to do so. “Don't tell
Will,” she was about to say, when Will himself appeared,
to take Katy out to dinner. Very beautiful and sad
were the blue eyes which looked up at him so wistfully,
and nothing but the remembrance of Juno's words, “He
likes you best of all” kept Katy from crying outright,
when he took her hand, and asked if she was tired.
“Let us try what dinner will do for you,” he said, and
in silence Katy went with him to the dining-room, where
the glare and the ceremony bewildered her, bringing a
homesick feeling as she thought of Silverton, and the
plain tea-table, graced with the mulberry set instead of
the costly china before her.
Never had Katy felt so embarrassed as she did when
seated for the first time at dinner in her husband's home,
with all those criticising eyes upon her. She had been
very hungry, but her appetite was gone and she almost
loathed the rich food offered her, feeling so glad when
the dinner was ended, and Wilford took her to the parlor,
where she found Mark Ray waiting for her. He had
been obliged to decline Mrs. Cameron's invitation to dinner,
but had come as early as possible after it, and Katy
was delighted to see him, for she remembered how he
had helped her during that week of gaiety in Boston,
when society was so new to her. As he had been then,
so he was now, and his friendly manner put Katy as
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much at her ease as it was possible for her to be in the
presence of Wilford's mother and sisters.
“I suppose you have not seen your sister Helen? You
know I called there,” Mark said to Katy; but before she
could reply, a pair of black eyes shot a keen glance at
luckless Mark, and Juno's sharp voice said quickly, “I did
not know you had the honor of Miss Lennox's acquaintance.”
Mark was in a dilemma. He had kept his call at Silverton
to himself, as he did not care to be questioned about
Katy's family; and now, when it accidentally came out,
he tried to make some evasive reply, pretending that he
had spoken of it, and Juno had forgotten. But Juno
knew better, and from that night dated a strong feeling
of dislike for Helen Lennox, whom she affected to despise,
even though she could be jealous of her. Wisely
changing the conversation, Mark asked Katy to play, and
as she seldom refused, she went at once to the piano,
astonishing both Mrs. Cameron and her daughters with
the brilliancy of her performance. Even Juno complimented
her, saying she must have taken lessons very
young.
“When I was ten,” Katy answered. “Cousin Morris
gave me my first exercise himself. He plays sometimes.”
“Yes, I knew that,” Juno replied. “Does your sister
play as well as you?”
Katy knew that Helen did not, and she answered
frankly, “Morris thinks she does not. She is not as
fond of it as I am.” Then feeling that she must in some
way make amends for Helen, she added, “But she knows
a great deal more than I do about books. Helen is very
smart.”
There was a smile on every lip at this ingenuous remark,
but only Mark and Bell liked Katy the better for
it. Wilford did not care to have her talking of her
friends, and he kept her at the piano, until she said her
fingers were tired and begged leave to stop.
It was late ere Mark bade them good night; so late
that Katy began to wonder if he would never go, yawning
once so perceptibly that Wilford gave her a reproving
glance, which sent the hot blood to her face and
drove from her every feeling of drowsiness. Even after
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he had gone the family were in no haste to retire, but
sat chatting with Wilford until the city clock struck
twelve and Katy was nodding in her chair.
“Poor child, she is very tired,” Wilford said, apologetically,
gently waking Katy, who begged them to excuse
her, and followed her husband to her room, where
she was free to ask him what she must ask before she
could ever be quite as happy as she had been before.
Going up to the chair where Wilford was sitting before
the fire, and standing partly behind him, she said timidly,
“Will you answer me one thing truly?”
Alone with Katy, Wilford felt all his old tenderness returning,
and drawing her into his lap he asked her what
it was she wished to know.
“Did you love anybody three or four years ago, or ever—
that is, love them well enough to wish to make them
your wife?”
Katy could feel how Wilford started, as he said, “What
put that idea into your head? Who has been talking to
you?”
“Juno,” Katy answered. “She told me she believed
that it was some other love which kept you a bachelor so
long. Was it, Wilford?” and Katy's lips quivered in a
grieved kind of way as she put the question.
“Juno be—”
Wilford did not say what, for he seldom swore, and
never in a lady's presence. So he said instead,
“It was very unkind in Juno to distress you with matters
about which she knew nothing.”
“But did you?” Katy asked again. “Was there not a
Sybil Grey, or some one of that name?”
At the mention of Sybil Grey, Wilford looked relieved,
and answered her at once.
“Yes, there was a Sybil Grey, Mrs. Judge Grandon
now, and a dashing widow. Don't sigh so wearily,” he
continued, as Katy drew a gasping breath. “Knowing
she was a widow I chose you, thus showing which I preferred.
Few men live to be thirty without more or less
fancies, which under some circumstances might ripen into
something stronger, and I am not an exception. I
never loved Sybil Grey, nor wished to make her my wife.
I admired her very much. I admire her yet, and among
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all my acquaintances there is not one upon whom I would
care to have you make so good an impression as upon
her, nor one whose manner you could better imitate.”
“Oh, will she call? Shall I see her?” Katy asked, beginning
to feel alarmed at the very thought of Sybil Grey,
with all her polish and manner.
“She is spending the winter in New Orleans with her
late husband's relatives. She will not return till spring,”
Wilford replied. “But do not look so distresssd, for I
tell you solemnly that I never loved another as I love you.
Do you believe me?”
“Yes,” and Katy's head drooped upon his shoulder.
She was satisfied with regard to Sybil Grandon, only
hoping she would not have to meet her when she came
home. But the picture. Whose was that? Not Sybil's
certainly, else Juno would have known. The picture
troubled her, but she dared not speak of it, Wilford had
seemed so angry at Juno. Still she would probe him a
little further, and so she continued,
“I do believe you, and if I ever see this Sybil I will try
to imitate her; but tell me, if after her, there was among
your friends one better than the rest, one almost as dear
as I am, one whom you sometimes remember even now—
is she living, or is she dead?”
Wilford thought of that humble grave far off in St.
Mary's churchyard, and he answered quickly,
“If there ever was such an one, she certainly is not living.
Are you satisfied?”
Katy answered that she was, but perfect confidence in
her husband's affection had been terribly shaken, and
Katy's heart was too full to sleep even after she had retired.
Visions of Sybil Grey, blended with visions of
another whom she called the “dead fancy,” flitted before
her mind, as she lay awake, while hour after hour went
by, until tired nature could endure no longer, and just
as the great city was waking up and the rattle of wheels
was beginning to be heard upon the pavements, she fell
away to sleep.
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CHAPTER XIV. EXTRACTS FROM BELL CAMERON'S DIARY.
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New York, December
AFTER German Philosophy and Hamilton's Metaphysics,
it is a great relief to have introduced into
the family an entirely new element — a character
the dissection of which is at once a novelty
and a recreation. It is absolutely refreshing, and I find
myself returning to my books with increased vigor after
an encounter with that unsophisticated, innocent-minded
creature, our sister-in-law Mrs. Wilford Cameron. Such
pictures as Juno and I used to draw of the stately personage
who was one day coming to us as Wilford's wife, and of
whom even mother was to stand in awe. Alas, how hath
our idol fallen! And still I rather like the little creature,
who, the very first night, nearly choked mother to death,
giving her lace streamers a most uncomfortable twitch,
and actually kissing father — a thing I have not done
since I can remember. But then the Camerons are all a
set of icicles, encased in a refrigerator at that. If we were
not, we should thaw out, when Katy leans on us so affectionately
and looks up at us so wistfully, as if pleading
for our love. Wilford does wonders; he used to be so
grave, so dignified and silent, that I never supposed he
would bear having a wife meet him at the door with cooing
and kisses, and climbing into his lap right before us
all. Juno says it makes her sick, while mother is dreadfully
shocked; and even Will sometimes seems annoyed,
gently shoving her aside and telling her he is tired.
After all, it is a query in my mind whether it is not
better to be like Katy than like Sybil Grandon, about
whom Juno was mean enough to tell her the first day of
her arrival.
“Very pretty, but shockingly insipid,” is Juno's verdict
upon Mrs. Wilford, while mother says less, but looks a
great deal more, especially when she talks about “my
folks,” as she did to Mrs. Gen. Reynolds the first time
she called. Mother and Juno were so annoyed, while
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Will looked like a thunder cloud, when she spoke of
Uncle Ephraim saying so and so. He was better satisfied
with Katy in Europe, where he was not known, than
he is here, where he sees her with other people's eyes.
One of his weaknesses is a too great reverence for the
world's opinion, as held and expounded by our very
fashionable mother, and as in a quiet kind of way she
has arrayed herself against poor Katy, while Juno is
more open in her acts and sayings, I predict that it will
not be many months before he comes to the conclusion
that he has made a mésalliance, a thing of which no Cameron
was ever guilty.
I wonder if there is any truth in the rumor that Mrs.
Gen. Reynolds once taught a district school, and if she
did, how much would that detract from the merits of her
son, Lieutenant Bob. But what nonsense to be writing
about him. Let me go back to Katy, to whom Mrs. Gen.
Reynolds took at once, laughing merrily at her naïve
speeches, as she called them—speeches which made Will
turn black in the face, they betrayed so much of rustic
life and breeding. I fancy that he has given Katy a
few hints, and that she is beginning to be afraid of him,
for she watches him constantly when she is talking, and
she does not now slip her hand into his as she used to
when guests are leaving and she stands at his side;
neither is she so demonstrative when he comes up from
the office at night, and there is a look upon her face
which was not there when she came. They are “toning
her down,” mother and Juno, and to-morrow they are
actually going to commence a systematic course of training
preparatory to her début into society, said début to
occur on the night of the —, when Mrs. Gen. Reynolds
gives the party talked about so long. I was present
when they met in solemn conclave to talk it over, mother
asking Will if he had any objections to Juno's instructing
his wife with regard to certain things of which she
was ignorant. Will's forehead knit itself together at
first, and I half hoped he would veto the whole proceeding,
but after a moment he replied,
“No, provided Katy is willing. Her feelings must not
be hurt.”
“Certainly not,” mother said. “Katy is a dear little
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creature, and we all love her very much, but that does
not blind us to her deficiencies, and as we are anxious
that she should fill that place in society which Mrs.
Wilford Cameron ought to fill, it seems necessary to
tone her down a little before her first appearance at a
party.”
To this Will assented, and then Juno went on to enumerate
her deficiencies, which, as nearly as I can remember,
are these: She laughs too much and too loud; is
too enthusiastic over novelties; has too much to say
about Silverton and “my folks;” quotes Uncle Ephraim
and sister Helen too often, and is even guilty at times of
mentioning a certain Aunt Betsy, who must have floated
with the ark, and snuffed the breezes of Ararat. She
does not know how to enter, or cross, or leave a room
properly, or receive an introduction, or, in short, to do
anything according to New York ideas, as understood
by the Camerons, and so she is to be taught—toned down,
mother called it—dwelling upon her high spirit as something
vulgar, if not absolutely wicked. How father
would have sworn, for he calls her his little sunbeam, and
says he never should have gained so fast if she had not
come with her sunny face, and lively, merry laugh, to
cheer his sick room. Katy has a fast friend in him.
But mother and Juno—well, I shall be glad if they do
not annihilate her altogether, and I am surprised that
Will allows it. I wonder if Katy is really happy with
us. She says she is, and is evidently delighted with
New York life, clapping her hands when the invitation
to Mrs. Reynolds's party was received, and running with
it to Wilford as soon as he came home. It is her first
big party, she says, she having never attended any except
that little sociable in Boston, and those insipid
school-girl affairs at the seminary. I may be conceited—
Juno thinks I am—but really and truly, Bell Cameron's
private opinion of herself is that at heart she is
better than the rest of her family, and so I pity this
little sister of ours, while at the same time I am exceedingly
anxious to be present whenever Juno takes
her in hand, for I like to see the fun. Were she at
all bookish, I should avow myself her champion, and
openly defend her; but she is not, and so I give her
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into the hands of the Philistines, hoping they will, at
least, spare her hair, and not worry her life out on that
head. It is very becoming to her, and several young
ladies have whispered their intention of trying its effect
upon themselves, so that Katy may yet be a leader of
the fashion.
CHAPTER XV. TONING DOWN. —BELL'S DIARY CONTINUED.
SUCH fun as it was to see mother and Juno training
Katy, showing her how to enter the parlor,
how to arrange her dress, how to carry her hands
and feet, and how to sit in a chair—Juno going through
with the performance first, and then requiring Katy to
imitate her. Had I been Katy I should have rebelled,
but she is far too sweet-tempered and anxious to please,
while I suspect that fear of my lord Wilford had something
to do with it, for when the drill was over, she
asked so earnestly if we thought he would be ashamed
of her, and there were tears in her great blue eyes as
she said it. Hang Wilford! Hang the whole of them;
I am not sure I shall not yet espouse her cause myself,
or else tell father, who will do it so much better.
Dec. —th.—Another drill, with Juno commanding officer,
while the poor little private seemed completely
worried out. This time there were open doors, but so
absorbed were mother and Juno as not to hear the bell,
and just as Juno was saying, “Now imagine me Mrs.
Gen. Reynolds, to whom you are being presented,”
while Katy was bowing almost to the floor, who should
appear but Mark Ray, stumbling square upon that ludicrous
rehearsal, and, of course, bringing it to an end.
No explanation was made, nor was any needed, for
Mark's face showed that he understood it, and it was as
much as he could do to keep from roaring with merriment;
I am sure he pitied Katy, for his manner towards
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her was very affectionate and kind, and when she left
the room he complimented her highly, repeating many
things he had heard in her praise from those who had
seen her both in the street and here at home. Juno's
face was like a thunder-cloud, for she is as much in love
with Mark Ray as she was once with Dr. Grant, and is
even jealous of his praise of Katy. Glad am I that I
never yet saw the man who could make me jealous, or for
whom I cared a pin. There's Bob Reynolds up at West
Point. I suppose I do think his epaulettes very becoming
to him, but his hair is too light, and he cannot raise
whiskers big enough to cast a shadow on the wall, while
I know he looks with contempt upon females who write,
even though their writings never see the light of day;
thinks them strong-minded, self-willed, and all that. He
is expected to be present at the party, but I shall not go.
I prefer to stay at home and finish that article entitled,
“Women of the Present Century,” suggested to my mind
by my sister Katy, who stands for the picture I am drawing
of a pretty woman, with more heart than brains,
contrasting her with such an one as Juno, her opposite.
January 10.—The last time I wrote in my journal was
just before the party, which is over now, the long talked
of affair at which Katy was the reigning belle. I don't
know how it happened, but happen it did, and Juno's
glory faded before that of her rival, whose ringing laugh
frequently penetrated to every room, and made more than
one look up in some surprise. But when Mrs. Humphreys
said, “It's that charming little Mrs. Cameron, the
prettiest creature I ever saw, her laugh is so refreshing
and genuine,” the point was settled, and Katy was free
to laugh as loudly as she pleased.
She did look beautifully, in lace and pearls, with her
short hair curling in her neck. She would not allow us
to put so much as a bud in her hair, showing, in this respect,
a willfulness we never expected; but as she was
perfectly irresistible, we suffered her to have her way, and
when she was dressed, sent her in to father, who had
asked to see her. And now comes the strangest thing in
the world.
“You are very beautiful, little daughter,” father said.
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“I almost wish I was going with you to see the sensation
you are sure to create.”
Then straight into his lap climbed Katy, father's lap,
where none of us ever sat, I am sure, and began to coax
him to go, telling him she should appear better if he
were there, and that she should need him when Wilford
left her, as of course he must a part of the time. And
father actually dressed himself and went. But Katy did
not need him after the people began to understand that
Mrs. Wilford Cameron was the rage. Even Sybil Grey
in her palmiest days never received such homage as was
paid to the little Silverton girl, whose great charm was
her perfect enjoyment of everything, and her perfect
faith in what people said to her. Juno was nothing and
I worse than nothing, for I did go after all, wearing a
plain black silk, with high neck and long sleeves, looking,
as Juno said, like a Sister of Charity.
Lieut. Bob was there, his light hair lighter than ever,
and his chin as smooth as my hand. He likes to dance
and I do not, but somehow he persisted in staying where
I was, notwithstanding that I said my sharpest things
in hopes to get rid of him. He left me at last to dance
with Katy, who makes up in grace and airiness what she
lacks in knowledge. Once upon the floor she did not
lack for partners, but I verily believe danced every set,
growing prettier and fairer as she danced, for hers is a
complexion which does not get red and blowsy with
exercise.
Mark Ray was there too, and I saw him smile comically
when Katy met the people with that bow she was
making at the time he came so suddenly upon us. Mark
is a good fellow, and I really think we have him to thank
in a measure for Katy's successful début. He was the
first to take her from Wilford, walking with her up and
down the hall by way of reassuring her, and once as they
passed me I heard her say,
“I feel so timid here—so much afraid of doing something
wrong—something countrified.”
“Never mind,” he answered. “Act yourself just as
you would were you at home in Silverton, where you
are known. That is far better than affecting a manner
not natural to you.”
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After that Katy brightened wonderfully. The stiffness
which at first was perceptible passed off, and she was
Katy Lennox, queening it over all the city belles, drawing
after her a host of gentlemen, and between the sets
holding a miniature court at one end of the room, where
the more desirable of the guests crowded around, flattering
her until her little head ought to have been
turned if it was not. To do her justice she bore her
honors well, and when we were in the carriage and father
complimented her upon her success, she only said,
“If I pleased you all I am glad.”
So many calls as we had the next day, and so many
invitations as there are now on our table for Mrs. Wilford
Cameron, while our opera box between the scenes
is packed with beaux, until one would suppose Wilford
might be jealous; but Katy takes it so quietly and modestly,
seeming only gratified for his sake, that I really
believes he enjoys it more than she does. At all events
he persists in her going even when she would rather
stay at home, so if she is spoiled the fault will rest with
him.
February —th.—Poor Katy! Dissipation is beginning
to wear upon her, for she is not accustomed to our late
hours, and sometimes falls asleep while Esther is dressing
her. But go she must, for Wilford wills it so, and
she is but an automaton to do his bidding.
Why can't mother let her alone, when everybody
seems so satisfied with her? Somehow she does not believe
that people are as delighted as they pretend, and
so she keeps training and tormenting her until I do not
wonder that Katy sometimes hates to go out, lest she
shall unconsciously be guilty of an impropriety. I pitied
her last night when, after she was ready for the
opera, she came into my room where I was indulging
in the luxury of a loose dressing gown, with my feet on
the sofa. At first I think she liked Juno best, but latterly
she has taken to me, and now sitting down before
the fire into which her blue eyes looked with a steady
stare, she said,
“I wish I might stay here with you to-night. I have
heard this opera before, and it will be so tiresome. I
get so sleepy while they are singing, for I never care to
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watch the acting. I did at first when it was new, but
now it seems insipid to see them make believe, while the
theatre is worse yet,” and she gave a weary yawn.
In less than three months she had exhausted fashionable
life, and I looked at her in astonishment, asking
what would please her if the opera did not. What
would she like?
Turning her eyes full upon me, she exclaimed,
“I do like it some, I suppose, only I get so tired. I
like to ride, I like to skate, I like to shop, and all that;
but oh, you don't know how I want to go home to mother
and Helen. I have not seen them for so long; but I
am going in the spring—going in May. How many
days are there in March and April? Sixty-one,” she
continued; “then I may safely say that in eighty days I
shall see mother, and all the dear old places. It is not
a grand home like this. You, Bell, might laugh at it.
Juno would, I am sure, but you do not know how dear
it is to me, or how I long for a sight of the huckleberry
hills and the rocks where Helen and I used to play.”
Just then Will called to say the carriage was waiting,
and Katy was driven away, while I sat thinking of her
and the devoted love with which she clings to her home
and friends, wondering if it were the kindest thing which
could have been done, transplanting her to our atmosphere,
so different from her own.
March 1st.—As it was in the winter, so it is now; Mrs.
Wilford Cameron is the rage—the bright star of society
which quotes and pets and flatters, and even laughs at
her by turns; and Wilford, though still watchful, lest
she should do something outré, is very proud of her,
insisting upon her accepting invitations, sometimes two
for one evening, until the child is absolutely worn out,
and said to me once when I told her how well she was
looking and how pretty her dress was, “Yes, pretty
enough, but I am so tired. If I could lie down on mother's
bed, in a shilling calico, just as I used to do!”
Mother's bed seems at present to be the height of her
ambition—the thing she most desires; and as Juno fancies
it must be the feathers she is sighing for, she wickedly
suggests that Wilford either buy a feather bed for
his wife, or else send to Aunt Betsy for the one which
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was to be Katy's setting out! They go to housekeeping
in May, and on Madison Square, too. I think Wilford
would quite as soon remain with us, for he does not fancy
change; but Katy wants a home of her own, and I
never saw anything more absolutely beautiful than her
face when father said to Wilford that No. — Madison
Square was for sale, advising him to secure it. But when
mother intimated that there was no necessity for the
two families to separate at present—that Katy was too
young to have the charge of a house—there came into
her eyes a look of such distress that it went straight to
father's heart, and calling her to him, he said,
“Tell me, sunbeam, what is your choice—to stay with
us, or have a home of your own?”
Katy was very white, and her voice trembled as she
replied,
“You have been kind to me here, and it is very pleasant;
but I guess—I think—I'm sure—I should like the
housekeeping best. I am not so young either. Nineteen
in July, and when I go home next month I can learn
so much of Aunt Betsy and Aunt Hannah.”
Mother looked at Wilford then; but he was looking
into the fire with an expression anything but favorable
to that visit home, fixed now for April instead of May.
But Katy has no discernment, and believes she is actually
going to learn how to make apple dumplings and
pumpkin pies. In spite of mother the house is bought,
and now she is gone all day deciding how it shall be furnished,
always leaving Katy out of the question, as if she
were a cipher, and only consulting Wilford's choice.
They will be happier alone, I know. Mrs. Gen. Reynolds
says that it is the way for young people to live; that
her son's wife shall never come home to her, for of course
their habits could not be alike; and then she looked
queerly at me, as if she knew I was thinking of Lieutenant
Bob and who his wife might be.
Sybil Grandon is coming in April or May, and Mrs.
Reynolds wonders will she flirt as she used to do. Just
as if Bob would care for a widow! There is more danger
from Will, who thinks Mrs. Grandon a perfect paragon,
and who is very anxious that Katy may appear
well before her, saying nothing and doing nothing which
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shall in any way approximate to Silverton and the shoes
which Katy told Esther she used to bind when a girl.
Will need not be disturbed, for Sybil Grandon was never
half as pretty as Katy, or half as much admired.
Neither need Mrs. Gen. Reynolds fret about Bob, as if
he would care for her. Sybil Grandon indeed!
CHAPTER XVI. KATY.
MUCH which Bell had written of Katy was true.
She had been in New York nearly four months,
drinking deep draughts from the cup of folly and
fashion held so constantly to her lips; but she
cloyed of it at last, and what at first had been so eagerly
grasped, began, from daily repetition, to grow insipid
and dull. To be the belle of every place, to know that
her dress, her style, and even the fashion of her hair
was copied and admired, was gratifying to her, because
she knew it pleased her husband, who was never happier
or prouder than when, with Katy on his arm, he entered
some crowded parlor and heard the buzz of admiration
as it circled round, while Katy smiled and blushed
like a little child, wondering at the attentions lavished
upon her, and attributing them mostly to her husband,
whose position she understood, marveling more and
more that he should have chosen her to be his wife.
That he had so honored her made her love him with a
strange kind of grateful, clinging love, which as yet
would acknowledge no fault in him, no wrong, no error;
and if ever a shadow did cloud her heart she was the one
to blame, not Wilford; he was right—he the idol she
worshiped—he the one for whose sake she tried to drop
her country ways and conform to the rules his mother
and sister taught, submitting with the utmost good
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nature to what Bell called the drill, but never losing that natural,
playful, airy manner which so charmed the city people
and made her the reigning belle. As Marian Hazelton
had predicted, others than her husband had spoken
words of praise in Katy's ear; but such was her nature
that the shafts of flattery glanced aside, leaving her unharmed,
so that her husband, though sometimes disquieted,
had no cause for jealousy, enjoying Katy's success
far more than she did herself, urging her out when she
would rather have staid at home, and evincing so much
annoyance if she ventured to remonstrate, that she gave
it up at last and floated on with the tide.
Mrs. Cameron had at first been greatly shocked at
Katy's want of propriety, looking on aghast when she
wound her arms around Wilford's neck, or sat upon his
knee; but to the elder Cameron the sight was a pleasant
one, bringing back sunny memories of a summer-time
years ago, when he was young, and a fair bride had for a
few brief weeks made this earth a paradise to him. But
fashion had entered his Eden—that summer time was
gone, and only the dun leaves of autumn lay where the
buds which promised so much had been. The girlish
bride was a stately matron now, doing nothing amiss, but
making all her acts conform to a prescribed rule of etiquette,
and frowning majestically upon the frolicsome,
impulsive Katy, who had crept so far into the heart of
the eccentric man that he always found the hours of her
absence long, listening intently for the sound of her
bounding footsteps, and feeling that her coming to his
household had infused into his veins a better, healthier
life than he had known for years. Katy was very dear
to him, and he felt a thrill of pain when first the toning
down process commenced. He had heard them talk
about it, and in his wrath he had hurled a cut-glass goblet
upon the marble hearth, breaking it in atoms, while
he called them a pair of precious fools, and Wilford a
bigger one because he suffered it. So long as his convalescence
lasted, he was some restraint upon his wife, but
when he was well enough to resume his duties in his Wall
Street office, there was nothing in the way, and Katy's
education progressed accordingly. For Wilford's sake
Katy would do anything, and she submitted to much
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which would otherwise have been excessively annoying.
But she was growing tired now, and it told upon her
face, which was whiter than when she came to New
York, while her figure was, if possible, slighter and more
airy; but this only enhanced her loveliness, Wilford
thought, and so he paid no heed to her complaints of
weariness, but kept her in the circle which welcomed her
so warmly, and would have missed her so much.
Little by little it had come to Katy that she was not
quite as comfortable in her husband's family as she
would be in a house of her own. The constant watch
kept over her by Mrs. Cameron and Juno irritated and
fretted her, making her wonder what was the matter, and
why she should so often feel lonely and desolate when
surrounded by every luxury which wealth could purchase.
“It is his folks,” she always said to herself when
cogitating upon the subject. “Alone with Wilford I shall
feel as light and happy as I did in Silverton.”
And so Katy caught eagerly at the prospect of a release
from the restraint of No. —, seeming so anxious
that Wilford, almost before he was aware of it himself,
became the owner of one of the most desirable situations
on Madison Square. Of all the household after Katy,
Juno was perhaps the only one glad of the new house.
It would be a change for herself, for she meant to spend
much of her time on Madison Square, where everything
was to be on the most magnificent style. Fortunately
for Katy, she knew nothing of Juno's intentions
and built castles of her new home, where mother could
come with Helen and Dr. Grant. Somehow she never
saw Uncle Ephraim, nor his wife, nor Aunt Betsy there.
She knew how out of place they would appear, and how
they would annoy Wilford; but surely to her mother
and Helen there could be no objection, and when she
first went over the house she designated this room as
mother's, and another one as Helen's, thinking how each
should be fitted up with direct reference to their tastes,
Helen's containing a great many books, while her mother's
should have easy-chairs and lounges, with a host of
drawers for holding things. And Wilford heard it all,
making no reply, but considering how he could manage
best so as to have no scene, for he had not the slightest
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intention of inviting either Mrs. Lennox or Helen to
visit him, much less to become a part of his household.
That he did not marry Katy's relatives was a fact as fixed
as the laws of the Medes and Persians, and Katy's anticipations
were answering no other purpose than to divert
her mind for the time being, keeping her bright and
cheerful.
Very pleasant indeed were the pictures Katy drew of
the new house where Helen was to come, but pleasanter
far were her pictures of that visit to Silverton, to occur
in April. Poor Katy! how much she thought about that
visit when she should see them all and go with Uncle
Ephraim down into the meadows, making believe she was
Katy Lennox still—when she could climb the ladder in
the barn after new-laid eggs, or steal across the fields to
Linwood, talking with Morris as she used to talk in the
days which seemed so long ago. Morris she feared was
not liking her as well as of old, thinking her very frivolous
and silly, for he had only written her one short note
in reply to the letter she had sent, telling him of the parties
she had attended, and the gay, happy life she led, for
to him she would not then confess that in her cup of joy
there was a single bitter dreg. All was bright and fair,
she said, and Morris had replied that he was glad, “But
do not forget that death can find you even amid your
splendor, or that after death the judgment comes, and
then what shall it profit you if you gain the whole world
and lose your own soul.”
These words had rung in Katy's ears for many a day,
following her to the dance and to the opera, where even
the music was drowned by the echo of the words, “lose
your own soul.” But the sting grew less and less, till
Katy no longer felt it, and now was only anxious to talk
with Morris and convince him that she was not as thoughtless
as he might suppose, that she still remembered his
teachings, and the little church in the valley, preferring
it to the handsome, aristocratic house where she went
with the Camerons once on every Sunday.
“One more week and then it is April,” she said to
Wilford one evening after they had retired to their room,
and she was talking of Silverton. “I guess we'd better
go about the tenth. Shall you stay as long as I do?”
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Wilford bit his lip, and after a moment replied,
“I have been talking with mother, and we think April
is not a good time for you to be in the country; it is so
wet and cold, and I want you here to help order our furniture.”
“Oh, Wilford!” and Katy's voice trembled, for from
past experience she knew that for Wilford to object to
her plans was equivalent to a refusal, and her heart
throbbed with disappointment as she tried to listen while
Wilford urged many reasons why she should not go, convincing
her at last that of all times for visiting Silverton,
spring was the worst; that summer or autumn were better,
and that it was her duty to remain where she was
until such time as he saw fit for her to do otherwise.
This was the meaning of what he said, and though his
manner was guarded, and his words kind, they were very
conclusive, and with one gasping sob Katy gave up Silverton,
charging it more to Mrs. Cameron than to Wilford,
and writing next day to Helen that she could not
come just then, but that after she was settled they might
surely expect her.
With a bitter pang Helen read this letter to the three
women who had anticipated Katy's visit so much, and
each of whom cried quietly over her disappointment,
while Uncle Ephraim went back to his work that afternoon
with a heavy heart, for now his labor was not
lightened by thoughts of Katy's being there so soon.
“Please God she may come to us sometime,” he said,
pausing beneath the butternut in the meadow, and remembering
just how Katy looked on that first day of her
return from Canandaigua, when she sat on the flat stone
while he piled up his hay and talked with her of different
paths through life, one of which she must surely tread.
She had said, “I will choose the straight and pleasant,”
and some would think she had; but Uncle Ephraim was
not so sure, and leaning against a tree, he asked silently
that whether he ever saw his darling again or not, God
would care for her and keep her unspotted from the
world.
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CHAPTER XVII. THE NEW HOUSE.
[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]
IT was a cruel thing for Wilford Cameron to try to
separate Katy from the hearts which loved her so
much; and, as if he felt reproached, there was an
increased tenderness in his manner toward her,
particularly as he saw how sad she was for a few days after
his decision. But Katy could not be sorry long, and in
the excitement of settling the new house her spirits rallied,
and her merry laugh trilled like a bird through the
rooms where the workmen were so busy, and where Mrs.
Cameron was the real superintendent, though there was
sometimes a show of consulting Katy, who nevertheless
was a mere cipher in the matter. In everything the mother
had her way, until it came to the room designed for
Helen, and which Mrs. Cameron was for converting into
a kind of smoking or lounging room for Wilford and his
associates. Katy must not expect him to be always as
devoted to her as he had been during the winter, she said.
He had a great many bachelor friends, and now that he
had a house of his own, it was natural that he should have
some place where they could spend an hour or so with him
without the restraint of ladies' society, and this was just
the room—large, airy, quiet, and so far from the parlors
that the odor of the smoke could not reach them.
Katy had submitted to much without knowing that she
was submitting; but something Bell had dropped that
morning had awakened a suspicion that possibly she was
being ignored, and the wicked part of Helen would have
enjoyed the look in her eye as she said, not to Mrs. Cameron,
but to Wilford, “I have from the very first decided
this chamber for Helen, and I cannot give it up for a
smoking room. You never had one at home. Why did
you not, if it is so necessary?”
Wilford could not tell her that his mother would as
soon have brought into her house one of Barnum's shows,
as to have had a room set apart for smoking, which she
specially disliked; neither could he at once reply at all,
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so astonished was he at this sudden flash of spirit. Mrs.
Cameron was the first to rally, and in her usual quiet
tone she said, “I did not know that your sister was to
form a part of your household. When do you expect
her?” and her cold grey eyes rested steadily upon Katy,
who never before so fully realized the distance there was
between her husband's friends and her own. But as the
worm will turn when trampled on, so Katy, though hitherto
powerless to defend herself, roused in Helen's behalf,
and in a tone as quiet and decided as that of her
mother-in-law, replied, “She will come whenever I write
for her. It was arranged from the first. Wasn't it,
Wilford?” and she turned to her husband, who, unwilling
to decide between a wife he loved and a mother
whose judgment he considered infallible, affected not to
hear her, and stole from the room, followed by Mrs.
Cameron, so that Katy was left mistress of the field.
After that no one interfered in her arrangement of
Helen's room, which, with far less expense than Mrs.
Cameron would have done, she fitted up so cosily that
Wilford pronounced it the pleasantest room in the house,
while Bell went into ecstasies over it, and even Juno
might have unbent enough to praise it, were it not for
Mark Ray, who, from being tacitly claimed by Juno, was
frequently admitted to their counsels, and had asked the
privilege of contributing to Helen's room a handsome
volume of German poetry, such as he fancied she might
enjoy. So long as Mark's attentions were not bestowed
in any other quarter Juno was comparatively satisfied,
but the moment he swerved a hair's breadth from the
line she had marked out, her anger was aroused; and
now, remembering his commendations of Helen Lennox,
she hated her as cordially as one jealous girl can hate
another whom she has not seen, making Katy so uncomfortable,
without knowing what was the matter, that she
hailed the morning of her exit from No. — as the
brightest since her marriage.
It was a very happy day for Katy, and when she first
sat down to dinner in her own home, her face shone with
a joy which even the presence of her mother-in-law could
not materially lessen. She would rather have been alone
with Wilford, it is true, but as her choice was not
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consulted she submitted cheerfully, proudly taking her
rightful place at the table, and doing the honors so well
that Mrs. Cameron, in speaking of it to her daughters,
acknowledged that Wilford had little to fear if Katy always
appeared as much at ease as she did that day. A
thought similar to this passed through the mind of Wilford,
who was very observant of such matters, and that
night, after his mother was gone, he warmly commended
Katy, but spoiled the pleasure his commendations would
have given by tolling her next, as if one thought suggested
the other, that Sybil Grandon had returned, that
he saw her on Broadway, accepting her invitation to
a seat in her carriage which brought him to his door.
She had made many inquiries concerning Katy, expressing
a great curiosity to see her, and saying that as she
drove past the house that morning, she was strongly
tempted to waive all ceremony and run in, knowing she
should be pardoned for the sake of Auld Lang Syne,
when she was privileged to take liberties with the Camerons.
All this Wilford repeated to Katy, but he did
not tell her how at the words Auld Lang Syne, Sybil had
turned her fine eyes upon him with an expression which
made him color, for he knew she was referring to the
time when her name and his were always coupled together.
Katy had dreaded the return of Sybil Grandon, of
whom she had heard so much, and now that she had
come, she felt for a moment a terror of meeting her
which she tried to shake off, succeeding at last, for perfect
faith in Wilford was to her a strong shield of defence,
and her only trouble was a fear lest she should fall in the
scale of comparison which might be instituted between
herself and Mrs. Grandon, who after a few days ceased
to be a bugbear, Wilford never mentioning her again,
and Katy only hearing of her through Juno and Bell, the
first of whom went into raptures over her, while the latter
styled her a silly, coquettish widow, who would appear
much better to have worn her weeds a little longer,
and not throw herself quite so soon into the market.
That she should of course meet her some time, Katy knew,
but she would not distress herself till the time arrived,
and so she dismissed her fears, or rather lost them in
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the excitement of her new dignity as mistress of a
house.
In her girlhood Katy had evinced a taste for housekeeping,
which now developed so rapidly that she
won the respect of all the servants, from the man
who answered the bell to the accomplished cook, hired
by Mrs. Cameron, and who, like most accomplished
cooks, was sharp and cross and opinionated, but who did
not find it easy to scold the blithe little woman who
every morning came flitting into her dominions, not asking
what they would have for dinner, as she had been led
to suppose she would, but ordering it with a matter of
course air, which amused the usually overbearing Mrs.
Phillips. But when the little lady, rolling her sleeves
above her dimpled elbows and donning the clean white
apron which Phillips was reserving for afternoon, announced
her intention of surprising Wilford, with a pudding
such as Aunt Betsy used to make, there were signs
of rebellion, Phillips telling her bluntly that she couldn't
be bothered—that it was not a lady's place in the kitchen
under foot—that the other Mrs. Cameron never did it,
and would not like it in Mrs. Wilford.
For a moment Katy paused and looked straight at
Mrs. Phillips; then said, quietly, “I have only six eggs
here—the recipe is ten. Bring me four more, please.”
There was something in the blue eyes which compelled
obedience, and the dessert progressed without another
word of remonstrance. But when the door bell rang,
and word came down that there were ladies in the parlor—
Juno, with some one else—Philips would not tell her
of the flour on her hair; and as Katy, after casting aside
her apron and putting down her sleeves, only glanced
hastily at herself in the hall mirror as she passed it, she
appeared in the parlor with this mark upon her curls,
and greatly to her astonishment was presented to “Mrs.
Sybil Grandon,” Juno explaining, that as Sylbil was anxious
to see her, and they were passing the house, she
had presumed upon her privilege as a sister and brought
her in.
For a moment the room turned dark, it was so sudden,
so unexpected, and she so unprepared; but Sybil's familiar
manner quieted her, and she was able at last to look
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fully at her visitor, finding her not as handsome as she
expected, nor as young, but in all other respects she had
not perhaps been exaggerated. Cultivated and self-possessed,
she was very pleasing in her manner, making
Katy feel wholly at ease by a few well-timed compliments,
which had the merit of seeming genuine, so perfect
was she in the art of deception.
To Katy she was very gracious, admiring her house,
admiring herself, admiring everything, until Katy wondered
how she could ever have dreaded to meet her,
laughing and chatting as familiarly as if the fashionable
woman were not criticising every movement, and every
act, and every feature of her face, wondering most at the
flour upon her hair!
Juno wondered, too, but knowing Katy's domestic
propensities, suspected the truth, and feigning some
errand with Phillips, she excused herself for a moment
and descended to the kitchen, where she was not long in
hearing about Katy's “queer ways, coming where she was
not needed, and making country puddings after some
heathenish aunt's rule.”
“Was it Aunt Betsy?” Juno asked, her face betokening
its disgust when told that she was right, and her
manner on her return to the parlor was very frigid towards
Katy, who had discovered the flour on her hair, and was
laughing merrily over it, telling Sybil how it happened—
how cross Phillips was—and lastly, how “our folks”
often made the pudding, and that was why she wished
to surprise Wilford with it.
There was a sarcastic smile upon Sybil's lip as she
wished Mrs. Cameron success and then departed, leaving
Katy to finish the dessert, which, when ready for the
table, was certainly very inviting, and would have tempted
the appetite of any man who had not been listening to
gossip not wholly conducive to his peace of mind.
On his way home Wilford had stopped at his father's,
where Juno was relating the particulars of her call upon
his wife, and as she did not think it necessary to stop for
him, he heard of Katy's misdoings, and her general appearance
in the presence of Sybil Grandon, whom she
entertained with a description of “our folks' ” favorite
dishes, together with Aunt Betsy's recipes. This was
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the straw too many, and since his marriage Wilford had
not been as angry as he was while listening to Juno, who
reported Sybil's verdict on his wife, “A domestic little
body and very pretty.”
Wilford did not care to have his wife domestic; he did
not marry her for that, and in a mood anything but
favorable to the light, delicate dessert Katy had prepared
with so much care, he went to his luxurious home, where
Katy ran as usual to meet him, her face brimming with
the surprise she had in store for him, and herself so
much excited that she did not at first observe the cloud
upon his brow, as he moodily answered her rapid
questions. When the important moment arrived, and
the dessert was brought on, he promptly declined it,
even after her explanation that she made it herself, urging
him to try it for the sake of pleasing her, if nothing
more. But Wilford was not hungry then, and even had
he been, he would have chosen anything before a pudding
made from a recipe of Betsy Barlow, so the dessert
was untasted even by Katy herself, who, knowing now
that something had gone wrong, sat fighting back her
tears until the servant left the room, when she timidly
asked, “What is it, Wilford? What makes you seem
so—” She would not say cross, and so substituted
“queer,” while Wilford plunged at once into the matter
by saying, “Juno tells me she called here this afternoon
with Mrs. Grandon.”
“Yes, I forgot to mention it,” Katy answered, feeling
puzzled to know why that should annoy her husband;
but his next remarks disclosed the whole, and Katy's
tears flowed fast as Wilford asked what she supposed
Mrs. Grandson thought, to see his wife looking as if fresh
from the flour barrel, and to hear her talk about Aunt
Betsy's recipes and “our folks.” “That is a bad habit of
yours, Katy,” he continued, “one of which I wish you to
break yourself, if possible. I have never spoken to you
directly on the subject before, but it annoys me exceedingly,
inasmuch as it is an indication of low breeding.”
There was no answer from Katy, whose heart was too
full to speak, and so Wilford went on, “Our servants
were selected by mother with a direct reference to your
youth and inexperience, and it is not necessary for you
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to frequent the kitchen, or, indeed, to go there oftener
than once a week. Let them come to you for orders,
not you go to them. Neither need you speak quite so
familiarly to them, treating them almost as if they were
your equals. Try to remember your true position—that
whatever you may have been you are now Mrs. Wilford
Cameron, equal to any lady in New York.”
They were in the library now, and the soft May breeze
came stealing through the open window, stirring the
fleecy curtains and blowing across the tasteful bouquet
which Katy had arranged; but Katy was too wretched
to care for her surroundings. It was the first time Wilford
had ever spoken to her in just this way, and his
manner hurt her more than his words, making her feel
as if she were an ignorant, ill-bred creature, whom he
had raised to a position she did not know how to fill.
It was cruel thus to repay her attempts to please, and
so, perhaps, Wilford thought, as with folded arms he sat
looking at her weeping so bitterly upon the sofa; but he
was too indignant to make any concession then, and he
suffered her to weep in silence until he remembered that
his mother had requested him to bring her round that
evening, as they were expecting a few of Juno's friends,
and among them Sybil Grandon. If Katy went he
wished her to look her best, and he unbent so far as to
try to check her tears. But Katy could not stop, and
she wept so passionately that Wilford's anger subsided,
leaving only tenderness and pity for the wife he soothed
and caressed, until the sobbing ceased, and Katy lay passively
in his arms, her face so white, and the dark rings
about her eyes showing so distinctly that Wilford did not
press her when she declined his mother's invitation. He
could go, she said, urging so many reasons why he should
that, for the first time since their marriage, he left her
alone, and went where Sybil Grandon smiled her sunniest
smile, and put forth her most persuasive powers to
keep him at her side, expressing so much regret that he
did not bring “his charming little wife, who completely
won her heart, she was so child-like and simple-hearted,
laughing so merrily when she discovered the flour on her
hair, but not seeming to mind it in the least. Really,
she did not see how it happened that he was fortunate
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enough to win such a domestic treasure. Where did he
find her?”
If Sybil Grandon meant this to be complimentary, it
was not received as such. Wilford, almost grating his
teeth with vexation as he listened to it, and feeling doubly
mortified with Katy, whom he found waiting for him,
when at a late hour he left the society of Sybil Grandon
and repaired to his home.
To Katy the time of his absence had seemed an age,
for her thoughts had been busy with the past, gathering
up every incident connected with her married life since
she came to New York, and deducing from them the conclusion
that “Wilford's folks” were ashamed of her, and
that Wilford himself might perhaps become so if he were
not already. That would be worse than death itself, and
the darkest hours she had ever known were those she
spent alone that night, sobbing so violently as to bring
on a racking headache, which showed itself upon her
face and touched Wilford at once.
Sybil Grandon was forgotten in those moments of contrition,
when he ministered so tenderly to his suffering
wife, whom he felt that he had wronged. But he could
not tell her so then. It was not natural for him to confess
his errors. There had always been a struggle between
his duty and his pride when he had done so, and now
the latter conquered, especially as Katy, grown more
calm, began to take the censure to herself, lamenting her
short-comings, and promising to do better, even to the
imitating of Sybil Grandon, if that would make him forget
the past and love her as before.
Wilford could accord forgiveness far more graciously
than he could ask it, and so peace was restored, and
Katy's face next day looked bright and happy when seen
in her new carriage, which took her down Broadway to
Stewart's, where she encountered Sybil Grandon, and
with her Juno Cameron.
From the latter Katy instinctively shrank, but she
could not resist the former, who greeted her so familiarly
that Katy readily forgave her the pain of which she had
been the cause, and spoke of her to Wilford without a
pang when he came home to dinner. Still she could not
overcome her dread of meeting her, and she grew more
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and more averse to mingling in society, where she might
do many things to mortify her husband or his family,
and thus provoke a scene she hoped never again to pass
through.
“Oh, if Helen were only here!” she thought, as she
began to experience a sensation of loneliness she had
never felt before.
But Helen was not there, nor coming there at present.
One word from Wilford had settled that, convincing
Katy that it was better to wait until the autumn, inasmuch
as they were going so soon to Saratoga and Newport,
places which Katy dreaded, after she knew that
Mrs. Cameron and Juno were to be of the party, and
probably Sybil Grandon. Katy did not dislike the latter,
but she was never easy in her presence, while
she could not deny to herself that since Sybil's return
Wilford had not been quite the same as before. In company
he was more attentive than ever, but at home he
was sometimes moody and silent, while Katy strove in
vain to ascertain the cause.
They were not as happy in the new home as she had
expected to be, but the fault did not lie with Katy. She
performed her part and more, taking upon her young
shoulders the whole of the burden which her husband
should have helped her to bear. The easy, indolent life
Wilford had led so long as a petted son of a partial
mother unfitted him for care, and he was as much a
boarder in his own home as he had ever been in the hotels
in Paris, thoughtlessly requiring of Katy more than
he should have required, so that Bell was not far from
right when in her journal she described her sister-in-law
as “a little servant whose feet were never supposed to be
tired, and whose wishes were never consulted.” It is
true Bell had put it rather strongly, but the spirit of
what she said was right, Wilford seldom considering
Katy, or allowing her wishes to interfere with his own
plans; while accustomed to every possible attention from
his mother, he exacted the same from his wife, whose life
was not one of unmixed happiness, notwithstanding that
every letter home bore assurances to the contrary.
-- 148 -- p591-153
CHAPTER XVIII. MARIAN HAZLETON.
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THE last days of June had come, and Wilford was
beginning to make arrangements for removing
Katy from the city before the warmer weather.
To this he had been urged by Mark Ray's remarking
that Katy was not looking as well as when he first
saw her, one year ago. “She has grown thin and pale,”
he said. “Had Wilford remarked it?”
Wilford had not. She complained much of headache,
but that was only natural. Still he wrote to the Mountain
House that afternoon to secure rooms for himself
and wife, and then at an earlier hour than usual went
home to tell her of the arrangement. Katy was out
shopping, Esther said, and had not yet returned, adding,
“There is a note for her up stairs, left by a woman who
I guess came for work.”
That a woman should come for work was not strange,
but that she should leave a note seemed rather too familiar;
and when on going to the library he saw it upon
the table, he took it in his hand and examined the superscription
closely, holding it up to the light and forgetting
to open it in his perplexity and the train of thought it
awakened.
“They are singularly alike,” he said, and still holding
the note in his hand he opened a drawer of his writing
desk, which was always kept locked, and took from it a
picture and a bit of soiled paper, on which was written,
“I am not guilty, Wilford, and God will never forgive the
wrong you have done to me.”
There was no name or date, but Wilford knew whose
hand had penned those lines, and he sat comparing them
with the “Mrs. Wilford Cameron” which the strange woman
had written. Then opening the note, he read that,
having returned to New York, and wishing employment
either as seamstress or dressmaker, Marian Hazelton had
ventured to call upon Mrs. Cameron, remembering her
promise to give her work if she should desire it.
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“Who is Marian Hazelton?” Wilford asked himself as
he threw down the missive. “Some of Katy's country
friends, I dare say. Seems to me I have heard that name.
She certainly writes as Genevra did, except that this Hazelton's
is more decided and firm. Poor Genevra!”
There was a pallor about Wilford's lips as he said this,
and taking up the picture he gazed for a long time upon
the handsome, girlish face, whose dark eyes seemed to
look reproachfully upon him, just as they must have
looked when the words were penned, “God will never
forgive the wrong you have done to me.”
“Genevra was mistaken,” he said. “At least if God
has not forgiven, he has prospered me, which amounts
to the same thing;” and without a single throb of gratitude
to Him who had thus prospered him, Wilford laid
Genevra's picture and Genevra's note back with the withered
grass and flowers plucked from Genevra's grave,
just as Katy's ring was heard and Katy herself came in.
As thoughts of Genevra always made Wilford kinder
towards his wife, so now he kissed her white cheek, noticing
that, as Mark had said, it was whiter than last
year in June. But mountain air would bring back the
roses, he thought, as he handed her the note.
“Oh, yes, from Marian Hazelton,” Katy said, glancing
first at the name and then hastily reading it through.
“Who is Marian Hazleton?” Wilford asked, and Katy
replied by repeating all she knew of Marian, and how she
chanced to know her at all. “Don't you remember Helen
wrote that she fainted at our wedding, and I was so
sorry, fearing I might have overworked her?”
Wilford did remember something about it, and then
dismissing Marian from his mind, he told Katy of his
plan for taking her to the Mountain House a few weeks
before going to Saratoga.
“Would you not like it?” he asked, as she continued
silent, with her eyes fixed upon the window opposite.
“Yes,” and Katy drew a long and weary breath. I
shall like any place where there are birds, and rocks, and
trees, and real grass, such as grows of itself in the country;
but Wilford,” and Katy crept close to him now, “if
I might go to Silverton, I should get strong so fast! You
don't know how I long to see home once more. I dream
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about it nights and think about it days, knowing just
how pleasant it is there, with the roses in bloom and the
meadows so fresh and green. May I go, Wilford? May
I go home to mother?”
Had Katy asked for half his fortune, just as she asked
to go home, Wilford would have given it to her; but
Silverton had a power to lock all the softer avenues of
his heart, and so he answered that the Mountain House
was preferable, that the rooms were engaged, and that as
he should enjoy it so much better he thought they would
make no change.
Katy did not cry, nor utter a word of remonstrance;
she was learning that quiet submission was better than
useless opposition, and so Silverton was again given up.
But there was one consolation. Seeing Marian Hazelton
would be almost as good as going home, for had she not
recently come from that neighborhood, bringing with her
the odor from the hills and freshness from the woods?
Perhaps, too, she had lately seen Helen or Morris at
church, and had heard the music of the organ which
Helen played, and the singing of the children just as it
sometimes came to Katy in her dreams, making her start
in her sleep and murmur snatches of the sacred songs
which Dr. Morris had taught. Yes, Marian could tell
her of all this, and very impatiently Katy waited for the
morning when she started for No. — Fourth Street, with
the piles of sewing intended for Marian.
It was a fault of Marian's not to remain long contented
in any place. Tiring of the country, she had returned to
the city, and thinking she might succeed better alone, had
hired a room far up the narrow stairway of a high, sombre-looking
building, and then from her old acquaintances,
of whom she had several in the city, she had solicited
work. More than once she had passed the handsome
house on Madison Square where Katy lived, walking
slowly, and contrasting it with her one room, which was
not wholly uninviting, for where Marian went there was
always an air of comfort; and Katy, as she crossed the
threshold, uttered an exclamation of delight at the cheerful,
airy aspect of the apartment, with its bright ingrain
carpet, its simple shades of white, its chintz-covered
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lounge, its one rocking-chair, its small parlor stove, and
its pots of flowers upon the broad window sill.
“Oh Marian,” she exclaimed, tripping across the floor,
and impulsively throwing her arms around Miss Hazelton's
neck, “I am so glad to meet some one from home.
It seems almost like Helen I am kissing,” and her lips
again met those of Marian Hazelton, amid her joy at
finding Katy unchanged, wondered what the Camerons
would say to see their Mrs. Wilford kissing a poor seamstress
whom they would have spurned.
But Katy did not care for Camerons then, or even
think of them, as in her rich basquine and pretty hat,
with emeralds and diamonds sparkling on her fingers,
she sat down by Marian.
“Tell me of Silverton; you don't know how I want to
go there; but Wilford does not think it best, at present.
Next fall I am surely going, and I picture to myself just
how it will look: Morris's garden, full of the autumnal
flowers—the ripe peaches in our orchard, the grapes
ripening on the wall, and the long shadows on the grass,
just as I used to watch them, wondering what made
them move so fast, and where they could be going. Will
it be unchanged, Marian? Do places seem the same
when once we have left them?” and Katy's eager eyes
looked wistfully at Marian, who replied, “Not always—
not often, in fact; but in your case they may. You have
not been long away.”
“Only a year,” Katy said. “I was as long as that in
Canandaigua; but this past year is different. I have
seen so much, and lived so much, that I feel ten years
older than I did last spring, when you and Helen made
my wedding dress. Darling Helen! When did you see
her last?”
“I was there five weeks ago,” Marian replied; “I saw
them all, and told them I was coming to New York.”
“Do they miss me any? Do they talk of me? Do
they wish me back again?” Katy asked, and Marian
replied, “They talked of little else, that is your own
family. Dr. Morris, I think, did not mention your name.
He has grown very silent and reserved,” and Marian's
eyes were fixed inquiringly upon Katy, as if to ascertain
how much she knew of the cause for Morris's reserve.
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But Katy had no suspicion, and only replied, “Perhaps
he is vexed that I do not write to him oftener, but
I can't. I think of him a great deal, and respect him
more than any living man, except, of course, Wilford;
but when I try to write, something comes in between me
and what I wish to say, for I want to convince him that
I am not as frivolous as he thinks I am. I have not forgotten
the Sunday school, nor the church service; but in
the city it is so hard to be good, and the service and
music seem all for show, and I feel so hateful when I see
Juno and Wilford's mother putting their heads down on
velvet cushions, knowing as I do that they both are
thinking either of their own bonnets or those just in
front.”
“Are you not a little uncharitable?” Marian asked,
laughing in spite of herself at the picture Katy drew of
fashion trying to imitate religion in its humility.
“Perhaps so,” Katy answered. “I grow bad from
looking behind the scenes, and the worst is that I do not
care, and then Katy went back again to the farmhouse,
asking numberless questions and reaching finally the
business which had brought her to Marian's room.
There were spots on Marian's neck, and her lips were
white, as she grasped the bundles tossed into her lap—
the yards and yards of lace and embroidery, linen, and
cambric, which she was expected to make for the wife of
Wilford Cameron; and her voice was husky as she asked
directions or made suggestions of her own.
“It's because she has no such joy in expectation. I
should feel so, too, if I were thirty and unmarried,” Katy
thought, as she noticed Marian's agitation, and tried to
divert her mind by talking of Europe and the places she
had visited.
“By the way, you were born in England? Were you
ever at Alnwick?” Katy asked, and Marian replied,
“Once, yes. I've seen the castle and the church. Did
you go there—to St. Mary's, I mean?”
“Oh, yes, and I was never tired of that old churchyard.
Wilford liked it, too, and we wandered by the hour
among the sunken graves and quaint headstones.”
“Do you remember any of the names upon the stones?
Perhaps I may know them?” Marian asked; but Katy
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did not remember any, or if she did, it was not “Genevra
Lampert, aged 22.” And so Marian asked her no more
questions concerning Alnwick, but talked instead of
London and other places, until three hours went by, and
down in the street the coachman chafed and fretted at
the long delay, wondering what kept his mistress in that
neighborhood so long. Had she friends, or had she
come on some errand of mercy? The latter most likely,
he concluded, and so his face was not quite so cross
when Katy at last appeared, looking at her watch and
exclaiming at the lateness of the hour.
Katy was very happy that morning, for seeing Marian
had brought Silverton near to her, and airy as a bird she
ran up the steps of her own dwelling, where the door
opened as by magic, and Wilford himself confronted her,
asking, with the tone which always made her heart beat,
where she had been, and he waiting for her two whole
hours. “Surely it was not necessary to stop so long with
a seamstress,” he continued when she tried to explain.
“Ten minutes would suffice for directions,” and he could
not imagine what attraction there was in Miss Hazelton
to keep her there three hours, and then the real cause of
his vexation came out. He had come expressly for the
carriage to take her and Sybil Grandon to a picnic up
the river, whither his mother, Juno and Bell, had already
gone. Mrs. Grandon must wonder why he staid so long,
and perhaps give up going. Could Katy be ready soon?
and Wilford walked rapidly up and down the parlor with
a restless motion of his hands which always betokened
impatience. Poor Katy! how the brightness of the
morning faded, and how averse she felt to joining that
picnic, which she knew had been in prospect for some
time, and had fancied she should enjoy! But not to-day,
with that look on Wilford's face, and the feeling that he
was vexed. Still she could think of no reasonable excuse,
and so an hour later found her driving into the country
with Sybil Grandon, who received her apologies with as
much good-natured grace as if she too had not worked
herself into a passion at the delay, for Sybil had been
very cross and impatient; but all this vanished when
she met Wilford and saw that he was disturbed and irritated.
Soft, and sweet, and smooth was she both in
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word and manner, so that by the time the grove was
reached Wilford's ruffled spirits had been soothed, and
he was himself again, ready to enjoy the pleasures of the
day as keenly as if no harsh word had been said to Katy,
who, silent and unhappy, listened to the graceful badinage
between Sybil and her husband, thinking how differently
his voice had sounded when addressing her only
a little while before.
“Pray put some animation into your face, or Mrs.
Grandon will think we have been quarreling,” Wilford
whispered, as he lifted his wife from the carriage, and
with a great effort Katy tried to be gay and natural.
But all the while she was fighting back her tears and
wishing she were away. Even Marian's room, looking into
the dingy court, was preferable to that place, and she
was glad when the long day came to an end, and with
a fearful headache she was riding back to the city.
The next morning was dark and rainy; but in spite of
the weather Katy found her way to Marian's room, this
time taking the — avenue cars, which left her independent
as regarded the length of her stay. About Marian
there was something more congenial than about her city
friends, and day after day found her there, watching
while Marian fashioned into shape the beautiful little
garments, the sight of which had a strangely quieting
influence upon Katy, sobering her down, and maturing
her more than all the years of her life had done. Those
were happy hours spent with Marian Hazelton, and Katy
felt it keenly when Wilford at last interfered, telling her
she was growing quite too familiar with that sewing
woman, and her calls must be discontinued, except,
indeed, such as were necessary to the work in progress.
With one great gush of tears, when there was no one
to see her, Katy gave Marian up, writing her a note, in
which were sundry directions for the work, which would
go on even after she had left for the Mountain House,
as she intended doing the last of June. And Marian
guessed at more than Katy meant she should, and with a
bitter sigh laid it in her basket, and then resumed the
work, which seemed doubly monotonous now that there
was no more listening for the little feet tripping up the
stairs, or for the bird-like voice which had brought so
much of music and sunshine to her lonely room.
-- 155 -- p591-160
CHAPTER XIX. SARATOGA AND NEWPORT.
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FOR three weeks Katy had been at the Mountain
House, growing stronger every day, until she
was much like the Katy of one year ago, But
their stay among the Catskills was ended, and on
the morrow they were going to Saratoga, where Mrs.
Cameron and her daughters were, and where, too, was
Sybil Grandon, the reigning belle of the United States.
So Bell had written to her brother, bidding him hasten
on with Katy, as she wished to see “that chit of a widow in
her proper place.” And Katy had been weak enough for
a moment to feel a throb of satisfaction in knowing how
effectually Sybil's claims to belle-ship would be put aside
when she was once in the field; even glancing at herself
in the mirror as she leaned on Wilford's shoulder,
and feeling glad that mountain air and mountain exercise
had brought the roses back to her white cheeks and the
brightness to her eyes. But Katy wept passionate tears
of repentance for that weakness, when an hour later she
read the letter which Dr. Grant had sent in answer
to one she had written from the Mountain House, confessing
her short-comings, and lamenting that the evils
and excesses which shocked her once did not startle her
now. To this letter Morris had replied as a brother
might write to an only sister, first expressing pleasure at
her happiness, and then reminding her of that other life
to which this is only a preparation, and beseeching her
so to use the good things of this world, given her in
such profusion, as not to lose the life eternal.
This was the substance of Morris's letter, which Katy
read with streaming eyes, forgetting Saratoga as Morris's
solemn words of warning and admonition rang in her
ears, and shuddering as she thought of losing the life
eternal, of going where Morris would never come, nor
any of those she loved the best, unless it were Wilford,
who might reproach her with having dragged him there
when she could have saved him.
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“Keep yourself unspotted from the world,” Morris had
said, and she repeated it to herself, asking “how shall I
do that? how can one be good and fashionable too?”
Then laying her head upon the rock where she was sitting,
Katy tried to pray as she had not prayed in months,
asking that God would teach her what she ought to know,
and keep her unspotted from the world. But at the
Mountain House it is easier to pray that one be kept from
temptation than it is at Saratoga, which this summer was
crowded to overflowing, its streets presenting a fitting picture
of Vanity Fair, so full were they of show and gala
dress. At the United States, where Mrs. Cameron
stopped, two rooms, for which an enormous price was
paid, had been reserved for Mr. and Mrs. Wilford Cameron,
and this of itself would have given them a certain
éclat, even if there had not been present many who remembered
the proud, fastidious bachelor, and were proportionately
anxious to see his wife. She came, she saw,
she conquered; and within three days after her arrival
Katy Cameron was the acknowledged belle of Saratoga,
from the United States to the Clarendon. And Katy,
alas, was not quite the same as she who on the mountain
ridge had sat with Morris's letter in her hand, praying that
its teachings might not be forgotten. Saratoga seemed
different to her from New York, and she plunged into its
gaieties, never pausing, never tiring, and seldom giving
herself time to think, much less to pray, as Morris had
bidden her do. And Wilford, though hardly able to recognize
the usually timid Katy in the brilliant woman who
led rather than followed, was sure of her faith to him, and
so was only proud and gratified to see her bear off the
palm from every competitor, while Juno, though she
quarreled with the shadow into which she was so completely
thrown, enjoyed the éclat cast upon their party
by the presence of Mrs. Wilford, who had passed beyond
her criticism. Sybil Grandon, too, stood back in wonder
that a simple country girl should win and wear the laurels
she had so long claimed as her own; but as there was
no help for it she contented herself as best she could
with the admiration she did receive, and whenever opportunity
occurred, said bitter things of Mrs. Wilford,
whose parentage and low estate were through her pretty
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generally known. But it did not matter there what
Katy had been; the people took her for what she was
now, and Sybil's glory faded like the early dawn in the
coming of the full day.
As it had been at Saratoga, so it was at Newport.
Urged on by Mrs. Cameron and Bell, who enjoyed her
notoriety, Katy plunged into the mad excitement of dancing
and driving and coqueting, until Wilford himself became
uneasy, locking her once in her room, where she was
sleeping after dinner, and conveniently forgetting to release
her until after the departure at evening of some
young men from Cambridge, whose attentions to the
Ocean House belle had been more strongly marked than
was altogether agreeable to him. Of course it was a
mistake—the locking of the door—and a great oversight
in him not to have remembered it sooner, he said to
Katy, by way of apology; and Katy, with no suspicion
of the truth, laughed merrily at the joke, repeating it
down stairs to the old dowagers, who shrugged their
shoulders meaningly and whispered to each other that it
might be well if more young wives were locked into their
rooms and thus kept out of mischief.
Though flattered, caressed, and admired, Katy was
not doing herself much credit at Newport; but save
Wilford there was no one to raise a warning voice, until
Mark Ray came down for a few days' respite from the
heated city, where he had spent the entire summer, taking
charge of the business which belonged as much to
Wilford as to himself. But Wilford had a wife; it was
more necessary that he should leave, Mark had argued;
his time would come by and by. And so he had remained
at home until the last of August, when he appeared suddenly
at the Ocean House one night when Katy, in her
airy robes and child-like simplicity, was breaking hearts
by the score. Like others, Mark was charmed, and not
a little proud for Katy's sake, to see her thus appreciated;
but when one day's experience had shown him more, and
given him a look behind the scenes, he trembled for her,
knowing how hard it would be for her to come out of
that sea of dissipation as pure and spotless as she
went in.
“If I were her brother I would warn her that her
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present career, is not one upon which she will look back
with pleasure when the excitement is over,” he said to
himself; “but if Wilford is satisfied it is not for me to interfere.
It is surely nothing to me what Katy Cameron
does,” he kept repeating to himself; but as often as he
said it there came up before him a pale, anxious face,
shaded with Helen Lennox's bands of hair, and Helen
Lennox's voice whispered to him, “Save Katy, for my
sake;” and so next day, when Mark found himself alone
with Katy, while most of the guests were at the beach,
he questioned her of her life at Saratoga and Newport,
and gradually, as he talked, there crept into Katy's heart
a suspicion that he was not pleased with her account, or
with what he had seen of her since his arrival.
For a moment Katy was indignant, but when he said
to her kindly, “Would Helen be pleased?” her tears
started at once, and she attempted an excuse for her
weak folly, accusing Sybil Grandon as the first cause of
the ambition for which she hated herself.
“She had been held up as my pattern,” she said, half
bitterly, and forgetting to whom she was talking—“she,
the one whom I was to imitate; and when I found that I
could go beyond her, I yielded to the temptation, and
exulted to see how far she was left behind. Besides
that,” she continued, “is it no gratification, think you,
to let Wilford's proud mother and sister see the poor
country girl, whom ordinarily they would despise, stand
where they cannot come, and even dictate to them if she
chooses so to do? I know it is wrong—I know it is
wicked—but I like the excitement, and so long as I am
with these people I shall never be any better. Mark
Ray, you don't know what it is to be surrounded by a
set who care for nothing but fashion and display, and
how they may outdo each other. I hate New York
society. There is nothing there but husks.”
Katy's tears had ceased, and on her white face there
was a new look of womanhood, as if in that outburst
she had changed, and would never again be just what
she was before.
“Say,” she continued, “do you like New York society?”
“Not always—not wholly,” Mark answered; “and
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still you misjudge it greatly, for all are not like the people
you describe. Your husband's family represent one
extreme, while there are others equally high in the social
scale who do not make fashion the rule of their lives,—
sensible, cultivated, intellectual people, of whose acquaintance
one might be glad—people whom I fancy
your sister Helen would enjoy. I have only met her
twice, but my impression is that she would not find New
York distasteful.”
Mark did not know why he had dragged Helen into
that conversation, unless it were that she seemed very
near to him as he talked with Katy, who replied,
“Yes, Helen finds good in all. She sees differently
from what I do, and I wish so much that she was here.”
“Why not send for her?” Mark asked, casting about
in his mind whether in case Helen came, he, too, could
tarry for a week and leave that business in Southbridge,
which he must attend to ere returning to the city.
It would be a study to watch Helen Lennox there at
Newport, and in imagination Mark was already her
sworn knight, shielding her from criticism, and commanding
for her respect from those who respected him,
when Katy tore his castle down by answering impulsively,
“I doubt if Wilford would let me send for her, nor
does it matter, as I shall not remain much longer. I do
not need her now, since you have shown me how foolish
I have been. I was angry at first, but now I thank
you for it, and so will Helen. I shall tell her when I
am in Silverton. I am going there from here, and oh,
I so wish it was to-day.”
The guests were beginning to return from the beach
by this time, and as Mark had said all he had intended
saying, he left Katy with Wilford, who had just come in
and joined a merry party of Bostonians only that day
arrived. That night at the Ocean House the guests
missed something from their festivities; the dance was
not so exhilarating or the small-talk between so lively,
while more than one white-kidded dandy swore mentally
at the innocent Wilford, whose wife declined to join
in the gaieties, and in a plain white muslin, with only a
pond lily in her hair, kept by her husband's side,
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notwithstanding that he bade her leave him and accept
some of her numerous invitations to join the giddy dance.
This sober phase of Katy did not on the whole please
Wilford as much as her gayer ones had done. All he
had ever dreamed of the sensation his bride would create
was more than verified. Katy had fulfilled his highest
expectations, reaching a point from which, as she
had said to Mark, she could dictate to his mother, if she
chose, and he did not care to see her relinquish it.
But Katy remained true to herself. Dropping her
girlish playfulness, she assumed a quiet, gentle dignity,
which became her even better than her gayer mood had
done, making her ten times more popular and more
sought after, until she begged to go away, persuading
Wilford at last to name the day for their departure, and
then, never doubting for a moment that her destination
was Silverton, she wrote to Helen that she should be
home on such a day, and as they would come by way of
Providence and Worcester, they would probably reach
West Silverton at 10 o'clock, A M.
“Wilford,” she added, in a postscript, “has gone
down to bathe, and as the mail is just closing, I shall
send this letter without his seeing it. Of course it can
make no difference, for I have talked all summer of coming,
and he understands it.”
CHAPTER XX. MARK RAY AT SILVERTON.
THE last day of summer was dying out in a fierce
storm of rain which swept in sheets across the Silverton
hills, hiding the pond from view, and beating
against the windows of the farm-house, whose
inmates were nevertheless unmindful of the storm save
as they hoped the morrow would prove bright and fair,
such as the day should be which brought them back
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their Katy. Nearly worn out with constant reference
was her letter, the mother catching it up from time to
time, to read the part referring to herself, where Katy had
told how blessed it would be “to rest again on mother's
bed,” just as she had so often wished to do, “and hear
mother's voice;” the deacon spelling out by his spluttering
tallow candle, with its long, smoky wick, what she
had said of “darling old Uncle Eph” and the rides into
the fields; Aunt Betsy, too, reading mostly from memory
the words, “Good old Aunt Betsy, with her skirts so
limp and short, tell her she will look handsomer to me
than the fairest belle at Newport;” and as often as Aunt
Betsy read it she would ejaculate, “The land! what kind
of company must the child have kept?” wondering next
if Helen had never written of the hoop, for which she
paid a dollar, and which was carefully hung in her
closet, waiting for the event of to-morrow, while the hem
of her pongee had been let down and one breadth
gored to accommodate the hoop. On the whole, Aunt
Betsy expected to make a stylish appearance before the
little lady of whom she stood in awe, always speaking
of her to the neighbors as “My niece, Miss Cammen
from New York,” and taking good care to report what
she had heard of “Miss Cammen's” costly dress and the
grandeur of her house, where the furniture of the best
chamber cost over fifteen hundred dollars.
“What could it be?” Aunt Betsy had asked in her
simplicity, feeling an increased respect for Katy, and
consenting the more readily to the change in her pongee,
as suggested to her by Helen.
But that was for to-morrow when Katy came; to-night
she only wore a dotted brown, whose hem just reached
the top of her “bootees,” as she went to strain the milk
brought in by Uncle Ephraim, while Helen took her
position near the window, looking drearily out upon the
leaden clouds, and hoping it would brighten before the
morrow. Like the others, Helen had read Katy's letter
many times, dwelling longest upon the part which said,
“I have been so bad, so frivolous and wicked here at
Newport, that it will be a relief to make you my confessor,
depending, as I do, upon your love to grant me absolution.”
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From a family in Silverton, who had spent a few days
at a private house in Newport, Helen had heard something
of her sister's life; the lady had seen her once
driving a tandem team down the avenue, with Wilford at
her side giving her instructions. Since then there had
been some anxiety felt for her at the farm-house, and
more than Dr. Grant had prayed that she might be kept
unspotted from the world; but when her letter came, so
full of love and self-reproaches, the burden was lifted,
and there was nothing to mar the anticipations of the
event for which they had made so many preparations,
Uncle Ephraim going to the expense of buying at auction
a half-worn covered buggy, which he fancied would
suit Katy better than the corn-colored wagon in which
she used to ride. To pay for this the deacon had parted
with the money set aside for the “great coat” he so
much needed for the coming winter, his old gray having
done him service for fifteen years. But his comfort was
nothing compared with Katy's happiness, and so, with
his wrinkled face beaming with delight, he had brought
home his buggy, putting it carefully in the barn, and
saying no one should ride in it till Katy came. With
untiring patience the old man mended up his harness,
for what he had heard of Katy's driving had impressed
him strongly with her powers of horsemanship, and
raised her somewhat in his respect. Could he have afforded
it Uncle Ephraim in his younger days would have
been a horse jockey, and even now he liked nothing better
than to make Old Whitey run when alone in the strip
of woods between his house and the head of the pond.
“Katy inherits her love of horses from me,” he said
complacently; and with a view of improving Whitey's
style and mettle, he took to feeding him on oats, talking
to him at times, and telling him who was coming.
Dear, simple-hearted Uncle Ephraim! the days which
he must wait seemed long to him as they did to the other
members of his family. But they were all gone now,—
Katy would be home on the morrow, and with the shutting
in of night the candles were lighted in the sitting-room,
and Helen sat down to her work, wishing it was to-night
that Katy was coming. As if in answer to her wish
there was the sound of wheels, which stopped before the
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house, and dropping her work Helen ran quickly to the
door, just as from under the dripping umbrella held by a
driver boy, a tall young man sprang upon the step, nearly
upsetting her, but passing an arm around her shoulders
in time to keep her from falling.
“I beg pardon for this assault upon you,” the stranger
said; and then turning to the boy he continued, “It's all
right, you need not wait.”
With a chirrup and a blow the horse started forward,
and the mud-bespattered vehicle was moving down the
road ere Helen had recovered her surprise at recognizing
Mark Ray, who shook the rain-drops from his hair, and
offering her his hand said in reply to her involuntary exclamation,
“I thought it was Katy,” “Shall I infer then
that I am the less welcome?” and his bright, saucy eyes
looked laughingly into hers. Business had brought
him to Southbridge, he said, and it was his intention
to take the cars that afternoon for New York, but having
been detained longer than he expected, and not liking
the looks of the hotel arrangements, he had decided to
presume upon his acquaintance with Dr. Grant, and spend
the night at Linwood. “But,” and again his eyes looked
straight at Helen, “it rained so hard and the light from
your window was so inviting that I ventured to stop, so
here I am, claiming your hospitality until morning, if
convenient; if not, I will find my way to Linwood.”
There was something in this pleasant familiarity which
won Uncle Ephraim at once, and he bade the young man
stay, as did Aunt Hannah and mrs. Lennox, who now
for the first time were presented to Mark Ray. Always
capable of adapting himself to the circumstances around
him, Mark did so now with so much case and courteousness
as to astonish Helen, and partly thaw the reserve
she had assumed when she found the visitor was from
the hated city.
“Are you expecting Mrs. Cameron?” he asked, adding,
as Helen explained that she was coming to-morrow,
“That is strange. Wilford wrote decidedly that he
should be in New York to-morrow. Possibly, though,
he does not intend himself to stop.”
“I presume not,” Helen replied, a weight suddenly lifting
from her heart at the prospect of not having to
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entertain the formidable brother-in-law who, if he staid
long, would spoil all her pleasure.
Thus at her ease on this point, she grew more talkative,
half wishing that her dress was not a shilling calico,
or her hair combed back quite so straight, giving her
that severe look which Morris had said was unbecoming.
It was very smooth and glossy, and Sybil Grandon would
have given her best diamond to have had in her own
natural right the heavy coil of hair bound so many times
around the back of Helen's head, and ornamented with neither
ribbon, comb, nor bow. Only a single geranium leaf,
with a white and scarlet blossom, was fastened just below
the ear, and on the side where Mark could see it best,
admiring its effect and forgetting the arrangement of the
hair in his admiration of the well-shaped head, bending
so industriously over the work which Helen had resumed—
not crocheting, nor yet embroidery, but the very
homely work of darning Uncle Ephraim's socks, a task
which Helen always did, and on that particular night.
Helen knew it was not delicate employment, and there
was a moment's hesitancy as she wondered what Mark
would think—then, with a grim delight in letting him
see that she did not care, she resumed her darning-needle,
and as a kind of penance for the flash of pride in which
she had indulged, selected from the basket the very
coarsest, ugliest sock she could find, stretching out the
huge fracture at the heel to its utmost extent, and attacking
it with a right good will, while Mark, with a comical
look on his face, sat watching her. She knew he was
looking at her, and her cheeks were growing very red,
while her hatred of him was increasing, when he said
abruptly, “You follow my mother's custom, I see. She
used to mend my socks on Tuesday nights.”
“Your mother mend socks!” and Helen started so
suddenly as to run the point of her darning-needle a
long way into her thumb, the wound bringing a stream
of blood which she tried to wipe away with her handkerchief.
“Bind it tightly round. Let me show you, please,”
Mark said, and ere she was aware of what she was doing
Helen was quietly permitting the young man to wind her
handkerchief around her thumb which he held in his
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hand, pressing it until the blood ceased flowing, and the
sharp pain had abated.
Perhaps Mark Ray liked holding that small, warm
hand, even though it were not as white and soft as Juno's;
at all events he did hold it until Helen drew it from
him with a quick, sudden motion, telling him it would do
very well, and she would not trouble him. Mark did not
look as if he had been troubled, but went back to his
seat and took up the conversation just where the needle
had stopped it.
“My mother did not always mend herself, but she
caused it to be done, and sometimes helped. I remember
she used to say a woman should know how to do everything
pertaining to a household, and she carried out
her theory in the education of my sister.”
“Have you a sister?” Helen asked, now really interested,
and listening intently while Mark told her of his
only sister Julia, now Mrs. Ernst, whose home was in
New Orleans, though she at present was in Paris, and
his mother was there with her. “After Julia's marriage,
nine years ago, mother went to live with her,” he said,
“but latterly, as the little Ernsts increase so fast, she
wishes for a more quiet home, and this winter she is
coming to New York to keep house for me.”
Helen thought she might like Mark's mother, who, he
told her, had been twice married, and was now Mrs.
Banker, and a widow. She must be different from Mrs.
Cameron; and Helen let herself down to another degree
of toleration for the man whose mother taught her
daughter to mend the family socks. Still there was
about her a reserve, which Mark wondered at, for it was
not thus that ladies were accustomed to receive his advances.
He did not guess that Wilford Cameron stood
between him and Helen's good opinion; but when, after
the family came in, the conversation turned upon Katy
and her life in New York, the secret came out in the
sharp, caustic manner with which she spoke of New
York and its people.
“It's Will and the Camerons,” Mark thought, blaming
Helen less than he would have done, if he, too, had not
known something of the Cameron pride.
It was a novel position in which Mark found himself
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that night; an inmate of a humble farm-house, where he
could almost touch the ceiling with his hand, and where
his surroundings were so different from what he had
been accustomed to; but, unlike Wilford Cameron, he
did not wish himself away, nor feel indignant at Aunt
Betsy's old-fashioned ways, or Uncle Ephraim's grammar.
He noticed Aunt Betsy's oddities, it is true, and
noticed Uncle Ephraim's grammar; but the sight of Helen
sitting there, with so much dignity and self-respect,
made him look beyond all else, straight into her open
face and clear brown eyes, where there was nothing obnoxious
or distasteful. Her language was correct, her
manner, saving a little stiffness, lady-like and refined;
and Mark enjoyed his situation as self-invited guest,
making himself so agreeable that Uncle Ephraim forgot
his hour of retiring, nor discovered his mistake until,
with a loud yawn, Aunt Betsy told him that it was half-past
nine, and she was “desput sleepy.”
Owing to Helen's influence there had been a change of
the olden custom, and instead of the long chapter,
through which Uncle Ephraim used to plod so wearily,
there were now read the Evening Psalms. Aunt Betsy
herself joined in the reading, which she mentally classed
with the “quirks,” but confessed to herself that it “was
most as good as the Bible.”
As there were only Prayer Books enough for the family,
Helen, in distributing them, purposely passed Mark
by, thinking he might not care to join them. But when
the verse came round to Helen he quickly drew his chair
near to hers, and taking one side of her book, performed
his part, while Helen's face grew red as the blossoms
in her hair, and her hand, so near to Mark's, trembled
visibly.
“A right nice chap, and not an atom stuck up,” was
Aunt Betsy's mental comment, and then, as he often will
do, Satan followed the saintly woman even to her knees,
making her wonder if “Mr. Ray hadn't some notion after
Helen.” She hoped not, for she meant that Morris
should have Helen, “though if 'twas to be it was, and
she should not go agin it;” and while Aunt Betsy thus
settled the case, Uncle Ephraim's prayer ended, and the
conscience-smitten woman arose from her knees with the
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conviction that “the evil one had got the better of her
once,” mentally asking pardon for her wandering thoughts
and promising to do better.
Mark was in no haste to retire, and when Uncle Ephraim
offered to conduct him to his room, he frankly answered
that he was not sleepy, adding, as he turned to
Helen, “Please let me stay until Miss Lennox finishes
her socks. There are several pairs yet undarned. I will
not detain you, though,” he continued, bowing to Uncle
Ephraim, who, a little uncertain what to do, finally departed,
as did Aunt Hannah and his sister, leaving Helen
and her mother to entertain Mark Ray. It had been
Mrs. Lennox's first intention to retire also, but a look
from Helen kept her, and she sat down by that basket of
socks, while Mark wished her away. Awhile they talked
of Katy and New York, Mark laboring to convince Helen
that its people were not all heartless and fickle, and at
last citing his mother as an instance.
“You would like mother, Miss Lennox. I hope you
will know her sometime,” he said, and then they talked
of books, Helen forgetting that Mark was city-bred in
the interest with which she listened to him, while Mark
forgot that the girl who appreciated and understood
his views almost before they were expressed, was
country born, and clad in homely garb, with no ornaments
save those of her fine mind and the sparkling face
turned so fully towards him.
“Mark Ray is not like Wilford Cameron,” Helen said to
to herself, when as the clock was striking eleven she bade
him good-night and went up to her room, and opening her
window she leaned her hot cheek against the wet casement,
and looked out upon the night, now so beautiful and
clear, for the rain was over, and up in the heavens the
bright stars were shining, each one bearing some resemblance
to Mark's eyes as they kindled and grew bright
with his excitement, resting always kindly on her—on
Helen, who leaning thus from the window, felt stealing
over her that feeling which, once born, can never be quite
forgotten.
Helen did not recognize the feeling, for it was a strange
one to her. She was only conscious of a sensation half
pleasurable, half sad, of which Mark Ray had been the
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cause, and which she tried in vain to put aside. And
then there swept over her a feeling of desolation such as
she had never experienced before, a shrinking from living
all her life in Silverton, as she fully expected to do,
and laying her head upon the little stand, she cried passionately.
“This is weak, this is folly,” she suddenly exclaimed,
as she became conscious of acting as Helen Lennox was
not wont to act, and with a strong effort she dried her
tears and crept quietly to bed just as Mark was falling
into his first sleep and dreaming of smothering.
Helen would not have acknowledged it, and yet it was
a truth not to be denied, that she staid next morning a
much longer time than usual before her glass, arranging
her hair, which was worn more becomingly than on the
previous night, and which softened the somewhat too intellectual
expression of her face, and made her seem more womanly
and modest. Once she thought to wear the light
buff gown in which she looked so well, but the thought
was repudiated as soon as formed, and donning the same
dark calico she would have worn if Mark had not been
there, she finished her simple toilet and went down
stairs, just as Mark came in at the side door, his hands
full of water lilies, and his boots bearing marks of what
he had been through to get them.
“Early country air is healthful,” he said, “and as I do
not often have a chance to try it, I thought I would improve
the present opportunity. So I have been down
by the pond, and spying these lilies I persevered until I
reached them, in spite of mud and mire. There is no
blossom I like so well. Were I a young girl I would always
wear one in my hair, as your sister did one night
at Newport, and I never saw her look better. Just let
me try the effect on you;” and selecting a half-opened
bud, Mark placed it among Helen's braids as skillfully as
if hair-dressing were one of his accomplishments. “The
effect is good,” he continued, turning her blushing face to
the glass and asking if it were not.
“Yes,” Helen stammered, seeing more the saucy eyes
looking over her head than the lily in her hair. “Yes,
good enough, but hardly in keeping with this old dress,”
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and vanity whispered the wish that the buff had really
been worn.
“Your dress is suitable for morning, I am sure,” Mark
replied, turning a little more to the right the lily, and
noticing as he did so how very white and pretty was the
neck and throat seen above the collar.
Mark liked a pretty neck, and he was glad to know
that Helen had one, though why he should care was a
puzzle. He could hardly have analyzed his feelings then,
or told what he did think of Helen. He only knew that
by her efforts to repel him she attracted him the more,
she was so different from any young ladies he had known—
so different from Juno, into whose hair he had never
twined a water lily. It would not become her as it did
Helen, he thought, as he sat opposite her at the table,
admiring his handiwork, which even Aunt Betsy observed,
remarking that “Helen was mightily spruced up for
morning,” a compliment which Helen acknowledged with
a painful blush, while Mark began a disquisition upon
the nature of lilies generally, which lasted until breakfast
was ended.
It was arranged that Mark should ride to the cars with
Uncle Ephraim when he went for Katy, and as this gave
him a good two hours of leisure, he spoke of Dr. Grant,
asking Helen if she did not suppose he would call round.
Helen thought it possible, and then remembering how
many things were to be done that morning, she excused
herself from the parlor, and repairing to the platform
out by the back door, where it was shady and cool, she
tied on a broad check apron, and rolling her sleeves
above her elbows, was just bringing the churn-dasher to
bear vigorously upon the thick cream she was turning
into butter, when, having finished his cigar, Mark went
out into the yard, and following the winding path came
suddenly upon her. Helen's first impulse was to stop,
but with a strong nerving of herself she kept on while
Mark, coming as near as he dared, said to her, “Why do
you do that? Is there no one else?”
“No,” Helen answered; “that is, we keep no servant,
and my young arms are stronger than the others.”
“And mine are stronger still,” Mark laughingly rejoined,
as he put Helen aside and plied the dasher
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himself, in spite of her protestations that he would certainiy
ruin his clothes.
“Tie that apron round me, then,” he said, with the
utmost nonchalance, and Helen obeyed, tying her check
apron around the young man's neck, who felt her hands
as they touched his hair, and knew that they were brushing
queer fancies into his brain—fancies which made him
wonder what his mother would think of Helen, or what
she would say if she knew just how he was occupied that
morning, absolutely churning cream until it turned to
butter, for Mark persisted until the task was done, standing
by while Helen gathered up the golden lumps, and
admiring her plump, round arms quite as much as he
had her neck.
She would be a belle like her sister, though of a different
stamp, he thought, as he again bent down his head
while she removed the apron and disclosed more than
one big spot upon his broadcloth. Mark assured her
that it did not matter; his coat was nearly worn out, and
anyway he never should regret that he had churned once
in his life, or forget it either; and then he asked if Helen
would be in New York the coming winter, talking of the
pleasure it would be to meet her there, until Helen began
to feel what she never before had felt, a desire to visit
Katy in her own home.
“Remember if you come that I am your debtor for
numerous hospitalities,” he said, when he at last bade
her good-bye and sprang into the covered buggy, which
Uncle Ephraim had brought out in honor of Katy's
arrival.
Old Whitey was hitched at a safe distance from all
possible harm. Uncle Ephraim had returned from the
store near by, laden with the six pounds of crush sugar
and the two pounds of real old Java he had been commissioned
to purchase with a view to Katy's taste, and
now upon the platform at West Silverton he stood, with
Mark Ray, waiting for the arrival of the train just appearing
in view across the level plain.
“It's fifteen months since she went away,” he said, and
Mark saw that the old man's form trembled with the excitement
of meeting her again, while his eyes scanned
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eagerly every window and door of the cars now slowly
stopping before him. “There, there!” and he laid his
hand nervously on Mark's shoulder, as a white, jaunty
feather appeared in view; but that was not Katy, and
the dim eyes ran again along the whole line of the cars,
from which so many were alighting.
But Katy did not come, and with a long breath of
wonder and disappointment the deacon said, “Can it be
she is asleep? Young man, you are spryer than I. Go
through the cars and find her.”
Mark knew there was plenty of time, and so he made
the tour of the cars, but found, alas, no Katy.
“She's not there,” was the report carried to the poor
old man, who tremblingly repeated the words, “Not
there, not come!” while over his aged face there broke a
look of touching sadness, which Mark never forgot, remembering
it always just as he remembered the big tear
drops which from his seat by the window he saw the old
man wipe away with his coat-sleeve, as whispering softly
to Whitey of his disappointment he unhitched the horse
and drove away alone.
“May be she's writ. I'll go and see,” he said, and
driving to their regular office he found a letter directed
by Wilford Cameron, but written by Katy; but he could
not read it then, and thrusting it into his pocket he went
slowly back to the home where the tempting dinner was
prepared and the family waiting so eagerly for him.
Even before he reached them they knew of the disappointment,
for from the garret window Helen had
watched the road by which he would come, and when
the buggy appeared in sight she saw he was alone.
There was a mistake; Katy had missed the train, she
said to her mother and aunts, who hoped she might be
right. But Katy had not missed the train, as was indicated
by the letter which Uncle Ephraim without a word
put into Helen's hand, leaning on old Whitey's neck
while she read aloud the attempt at an explanation which
Katy had hurriedly written, a stain on the paper where
a tear had fallen, attesting her distress at the bitter disappointment.
“Wilford did not know of the other letter,” she said,
“and had made arrangements for her to go back with
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him to New York, inasmuch as the house was already
opened and the servants there wanting a head; besides
that, Wilford had been absent so long that he could not
possibly stop at Silverton himself, and as he would not
think of living without her, even for a few days, there
was no alternative but for her to go with him on the
boat directly to New York. I am sorry, oh, so sorry,
but indeed I am not to blame,” she added in conclusion,
and this was the nearest approach there was to an admission
that anybody was to blame for this disappointment
which cut so cruelly, making Uncle Ephraim cry
as out in the barn he hung away the mended harness and
covered the new buggy, which had been bought for
naught.
“I might have had the overcoat, for Katy will never
come home again, never. God grant that it's the Cameron
pride, not hers that kept her from us,” the old man
said, as on the hay he knelt down and prayed that Katy
had not learned to despise the home where she was so
beloved.
“Katy will never come to us again,” seemed the prevailing
opinion at Silverton, where more than Uncle
Ephraim felt a chilling doubt at times as to whether she
really wished to come or not. If she did, it seemed easy
of accomplishment to those who knew not how perfect
and complete were the fetters thrown around her, and
how unbending the will which governed hers. Could
they have seen the look in Katy's face when she first understood
that she was not going to Silverton, their
hearts would have bled for the thwarted creature who
fled up the stairs to her own room, where Esther found
her twenty minutes later, cold and fainting upon the
bed, her face as white as ashes, and her hands clenched
so tightly that the nails left marks upon the palms.
“It was not strange that the poor child should faint—
indeed, it was only natural that nature should give way
after so many weeks of gaiety, and she very far from being
strong,” Mrs. Cameron said to Wilford, who was beginning
to repent of his decision, and who but for that
remark perhaps might have revoked it.
Indeed, he made an attempt to do so when, as consciousness
came back, Katy lay so pale and still before
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him; but Katy did not understand him, or guess that he
wished her to meet him more than half the way, and so
the verdict was unchanged, and in a kind of bewilderment,
Katy wrote the hurried letter, feeling less actual
pain than did its readers, for the disappointment had
stunned her for a time, and all she could remember of the
passage home on that same night when Mark Ray sat with
Helen in the sitting room at Silverton, was that there was
a fearful storm of rain mingled with lightning flashes and
thunder peals, which terrified the other ladies, but
brought to her no other sensation save that it would not
be so very hard to perish in the dark waters dashing so
madly about the vessel's side.
CHAPTER XXI. A NEW LIFE.
New York, December 16th, 18—.
TO MISS HELEN LENNOX, Silverton, Mass:
Your sister is very ill. Come as soon as possible.
W. Cameron.”
This was the purport of a telegram received at the
farm-house toward the close of a chill December day, and
Helen's heart almost stopped its beating as she read it
aloud, and then looked in the white, scared faces of those
around her. Katy was very ill—dying, perhaps—or
Wilford had never telegraphed. What could it be?
What was the matter? Had it been somewhat later,
they would have known; but now all was conjecture, and
in a half-distracted state, Helen made her hasty preparations
for the journey of the morrow, and then sent for
Morris, hoping he might offer some advice or suggestion,
for her to carry to that sick-room in New York.
“Perhaps you will go with me,” Helen said. “You
know Katy's constitution. You might save her life.”
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But Morris shook his head. If he was needed they
might send and he would come, but not without; and so
next day he carried Helen to the cars, saying to her as
they were waiting for the train, “I hope for the best, but
it may be Katy will die. If you think so, tell her, oh,
tell her, of the better world, and ask if she is prepared!
I cannot lose her in Heaven.”
And this was all the message Morris sent, though his
heart and prayers went after the rapid train which bore
Helen safely onward, until Hartford was reached, where
there was a long detention, so that the dark wintry night
had closed over the city ere Helen reached it, timid,
anxious, and wondering what she should do if Wilford
was not there to meet her. “He will be, of course,” she
kept repeating to herself, looking around in dismay, as
passenger after passenger left, seeking in stages and
street cars a swifter passage to their homes.
“I shall soon be all alone,” she said, feeling some relief
as the car in which she was seated began at last to
move, and she knew she was being taken whither the
others had gone, wherever that might be.
“Is Miss Helen Lennox here?” sounded cheerily in
her ears as she stopped before the depot, and Helen uttered
a cry of joy, for she recognized the voice of Mark
Ray, who was soon grasping her hand, and trying to
reassure her, as he saw how she shrank from the noise
and clamor of New York, heard now for the first time.
“Our carriage is here,” he said, and in a moment she
found herself in a close-covered vehicle, with Mark sitting
opposite, tucking the warm blanket around her,
asking if she were cold, and paying those numberless little
attentions so gratifying to one always accustomed to
act and think for herself.
Helen could not see Mark's face distinctly; but full
of fear for Katy, she fancied there was a sad tone in his
voice, as if he were keeping back something he dreaded
to tell her; and then, as it suddenly occurred to her
that Wilford should have met her, not Mark, her great
fear found utterance in words, and leaning forward so
that her face almost touched Mark's she said, “Tell me,
Mr. Ray, is Katy dead?”
“Not dead, oh no, nor very dangerous, my mother
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hopes; but she kept asking for you, and so my—that is,
Mr. Cameron sent the telegram.”
There was an ejaculatory prayer of thankfulness, and
then Helen continued, “Is it long since she was taken
sick?”
“Her little daughter will be a week old to-morrow,”
Mark replied; while Helen, with an exclamation of surprise
she could not repress, sank back into the corner,
faint and giddy with the excitement of this fact, which
invested little Katy with a new dignity, and drew her
so much nearer to the sister who could scarcely wait for
the carriage to stop, so anxious was she to be where
Katy was, to kiss her dear face once more, and whisper
the words of love she knew she must have longed to
hear.
Awe-struck, bewildered and half terrified, Helen looked
up at the huge brown structure, which Mark designated
as “the place.” It was so lofty, so grand, so like the
Camerons, and so unlike the farm-house far away, that
Helen trembled as she followed Mark into the rooms
flooded with light, and seeming to her like fairy land.
They were so different from anything she had imagined,
so much handsomer than even Katy's descriptions had
implied, that for the moment the sight took her breath
away, and she sank passively into the chair Mark
brought for her, himself taking her muff and tippet, and
noting, as he did so, that they were not mink, nor yet
Russian sable, but well-worn, well-kept fitch, such as
Juno would laugh at and criticise. But Helen's dress
was a matter of small moment to Mark, and he thought
more of the look in her dark eyes than of all the furs
in Broadway, as she said to him, “You are very
kind, Mr. Ray. I cannot thank you enough.” This remark
had been wrung from Helen by the feeling of home-sickness
which swept over her, as she thought how really
alone she should be there, in her sister's house, on
this first night of her arrival, if it were not for Mark,
thus virtually taking the place of the brother-in-law,
who should have been there to greet her.
“He was with Mrs. Cameron,” the servant said, and
taking out a card Mark wrote down a few words, and
handing it to the servant who had been looking
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curiously at Helen, he continued standing until a step was
heard on the stairs and Wilford came quietly in.
It was not a very loving meeting, but Helen was civil
and Wilford was polite, offering her his hand and asking
some questions about her journey.
“I was intending to meet you myself,” he said, “but
Mrs. Cameron does not like me to leave her, and Mark
kindly offered to take the trouble off my hands.”
He was looking pale and anxious, while there was on
his face the light of a new joy, as if the little life begun
so short a time ago had brought an added good to him,
softening his haughty manner and making him even endurable
to the prejudiced sister watching him so closely.
“Does Phillips know you are here?” he asked, answering
his own query by ringing the bell and bidding Esther,
who appeared, tell Phillips that Miss Lennox had arrived,
and wished for supper, explaining to Helen that since
Katy's illness they had dined at three, as that accommodated
them the best.
This done and Helen's baggage ordered to her room,
he seemed to think he had discharged his duty as host,
and as Mark had left he began to grow fidgety, for a tête-
à-tête with Helen was not what he desired. He had
said to her all he could think to say, for it never once
occurred to him to inquire after the deacon's family. He
had asked for Dr. Grant, but his solicitude went no further,
and the inmates of the farm-house might have been
dead and buried for aught he knew to the contrary.
The omission was not made purposely, but because he
really did not feel enough of interest in people so widely
different from himself even to ask for them, much less
to suspect how Helen's blood boiled as she detected the
omission and imputed it to intended slight, feeling glad
when he excused himself, saying he must go back to
Katy, but would send his mother down to see her. His
mother. Then she was there, the one whom Helen dreaded
most of all, whom she had invested with every possible
terror, hoping now that she would not be in haste to
come down. She might have spared herself anxiety on
this point, as the lady in question was not anxious to
meet a person who, could she have had her way, would
not have been there at all.
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From the first moment of consciousness after the long
hours of suffering, Katy had asked for Helen, rather
than her mother.
“Send for Helen; I am so tired, and she could always
rest me,” was her reply, when asked by Wilford what he
could do for her. “Send for Helen; I want her so
much,” she had said to Mrs. Cameron, when she came,
repeating the wish until a consultation was held between
the mother and son, touching the propriety of sending
for Helen. “She would be of no use whatever, and
might excite our Katy. Quiet is highly important just
now,” Mrs. Cameron had said, thus veiling under pretended
concern for Katy her aversion to the girl whose
independence in declining her dress-maker had never
been forgiven, and whom she had set down in her mind
as rude and ignorant.
“If her coming would do Katy harm she ought not to
come,” Wilford thought, while Katy in her darkened
room moaned on,
“Send for sister Helen; please send for sister Helen.”
At last, on the fourth day, Mrs. Banker, Mark Ray's
mother, came to the house, and in consideration of
the strong liking she had evinced for Katy ever since
her arrival in New York, and the great respect felt for
her by Mrs. Cameron, she was admitted to the chamber
and heard the plaintive pleadings, “Send for sister
Helen,” until her motherly heart was touched, and as
she sat with her son at dinner she spoke of the young
girl-mother moaning so for Helen.
Whether it was Mark's great pity for Katy, or whether
he was prompted by some more selfish motive, we do
not profess to say, but that he was greatly excited was
very evident from his manner as he exclaimed,
“Why not send for Helen, then? She is a splendid
girl, and they idolize each other. Talk of her injuring
Katy, that's all a humbug. She is just fitted for a nurse.
Almost the sight of her would cure one of nervousness,
she is so calm and quiet.”
This was what Mark said, and the next morning Mrs.
Banker's carriage stood at the door of No. — Madison
Square, while Mrs. Banker herself was talking to Wilford
in the library, and urging that Helen be sent for at once.
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“It may save her life. She is more feverish to-day
than yesterday, and this constant asking for her sister
will wear her out so fast,” she added, and that last argument
prevailed.
Helen was sent for, and now sat waiting in the parlor
for the coming of Mrs. Cameron. Wilford did not mean
Katy to hear him as he whispered to his mother that
Helen was below; but she did, and her blue eyes flashed
brightly as she started from her pillow, exclaiming,
“I am so glad, so glad! Kiss me, Wilford, because I
am so glad. Does she know? Have you told her?
Wasn't she surprised, and will she come up quick?”
They could not quiet her at once, and only the assurance
that unless she were more composed, Helen should
not see her that night, had any effect upon her; but
when they told her that, she lay back upon her pillow
submissively, and Wilford saw the great tears dropping
from her hot cheeks, while the pallid lips kept softly
whispering “Helen.” Then the sister love took another
channel, and she said.
“She has not been to supper, and Phillips is always
cross at extras. Will somebody see to it. Send Esther
to me, please. Esther knows and is good-natured.”
“Mother will do all that is necessary. She is going
down,” Wilford said; but Katy had quite as much fear
of leaving Helen to “mother” as to Phillips, and insisted
upon Esther until the latter came, receiving numerous
injunctions as to the jam, the sweetmeats, the peaches
and the cold ham Helen must have, each one being remembered
as her favorite.
Wholly unselfish, Katy thought nothing of herself or
the effort it cost her to care for Helen; but when it was
over and Esther was gone, she seemed so utterly exhausted
that Mrs. Cameron did not leave her, but staid at her
bedside, until the extreme paleness was gone, and her
eyes were more natural. Meanwhile the supper, which
as Katy feared had made Phillips cross, had been
arranged by Esther, who conducted Helen to the dining-room,
herself standing by and waiting upon her because
the one whose duty it was had gone out for the evening,
and Phillips had declined the “honor,” as she styled it.
There was a homesick feeling tugging at Helen's heart,
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while she tried to eat, and only the certainty that Katy
was not far away kept her tears back. To her the very
grandeur of the house made it desolate, and she was so
glad it was Katy who lived there and not herself as she
went up the soft carpeted stairway, which gave back no
sound, and through the marble hall to the parlor, where,
by the table on which her cloak and furs were lying, a
lady stood, as dignified and unconscious as if she had
not been inspecting the self-same fur which Mark Ray
had observed, but not, like him, thinking it did not matter,
for it did matter very materially with her, and a smile of
contempt had curled her lip as she turned over the
tippet which Phillips would not have worn.
“I wonder how long she means to stay, and if Wilford
will have to take her out,” she was thinking, just
as Helen appeared in the door and advanced into the
room.
By herself, it was easy to slight Helen Lennox, but in
her presence Mrs. Cameron found it very hard to appear
as cold and distant as she had meant to do, for there
was something about Helen which commanded her respect,
and she went forward to meet her, offering her
hand and saying cordially.
“Miss Lennox, I presume—my daughter Katy's sister?”
Helen had not expected this, and the warm flush which
came to her cheeks made her very handsome, as she returned
Mrs. Cameron's greeting, and then asked more
particularly for Katy than she had yet done. For a while
they talked together, Mrs. Cameron noting carefully
every item of Helen's attire, as well as the purity of her
language and her perfect repose of manner after the first
stiffness had passed away.
“Naturally a lady as well as Katy; there must be good
blood somewhere, probably on the Lennox side,” was
Mrs. Cameron's private opinion, while Helen, after a few
moments, began to feel far more at ease with Mrs. Cameron
that she had done in the dining-room with Esther
waiting on her, and the cross Phillips stalking once
through the room for no ostensible purpose except to get
a sight of her.
Helen wondered at herself, and Mrs. Cameron wondered
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too, trying to decide whether it were ignorance, conceit,
obtuseness, or what, which made her so self-possessed
when she was expected to appear so different.
“Strong-minded,” was her final decision, as she said at
last, “We promised Katy she should see you to-night.
Will you go now?”
Then the color left Helen's face and lips and her limbs
shook perceptibly, for the knowing she was soon to meet
her sister unnerved her; but by the time the door of
Katy's room was reached she was herself again, and there
was no need for Mrs. Cameron to whisper, “Pray do not
excite her.”
Katy heard her coming, and it required all Wilford's
and the nurse's efforts to keep her quiet.
“Helen, Helen, darling, darling sister!” she cried, as
she wound her arms around Helen's neck, and laid her
golden head on Helen's bosom, sobbing in a low, mournful
way which told Helen more how she had been longed
for than did the weak voice which whispered, “I've
wanted you so much, oh Helen; you don't know how
much I've missed you all the years I've been away. You
will not leave me now,” and Katy clung closer to the
dear sister who gently unclasped the clinging arms and
put back upon the pillow the quivering face, which she
kissed so tenderly, whispering in her own old half soothing,
half commanding way, “Be quiet now, Katy. It's
best that you should. No, I will not leave you.”
Next to Dr. Grant Helen had more influence over
Katy than any living being, and it was very apparent
now, for, as if her presence had a power to soothe, Katy
grew very quiet, and utterly wearied out, slept for a few
moments with Helen's hand fast locked in hers. When
she woke the tired look was gone, and turning to her sister
she said, “Have you seen my baby?” while the young
mother love which broke so beautifully over her pale
face, made it the face of an angel.
“It seems so funny that it is Katy's baby,” Helen said,
taking the puny little thing, which with its wrinkled face
and red, clinched fists was not very attractive to her, save
as she looked at it with Katy's eyes.
She did not even kiss it, but her tears dropped upon
its head as she thought how short the time since up in
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the old garret at home she had dressed rag dolls for the
Katy who was now a mother. And still in a measure she
was the same, hugging Helen fondly when she said good-night,
and welcoming her so joyfully in the morning
when she came again, telling her how just the sight of
her sitting there by baby's crib did her so much good.
“I shall get well so fast,” she said; and she was right,
for Helen was worth far more to her than all the physician's
powders, and Wilford was glad that Helen came,
even if she did sometimes shock him with her independent
ways, upsetting all his plans and theories with regard
to Katy, and meeting him on other grounds with an opposition
as puzzling as it was new to him.
To Mrs. Cameron Helen was a study; she seemed to
care so little for what others might think of her, evincing
no hesitation, no timidity, when told the second day after
her arrival that Mrs. Banker was in the parlor, and had
asked to see Miss Lennox. Mrs. Cameron did not suspect
how under that calm, unmoved exterior, Helen was
hiding a heart which beat painfully as she went down to
meet the mother of Mark Ray, going first to her own
room to make some little change in her toilet, and wishing
that her dress was more like the dress of those around
her—like Mrs. Cameron's, or even Esther's and the fashionable
nurse's. One glance she gave to the brown silk,
Wilford's gift, but her good sense told her that the plain
merino she wore was more suitable to the sick room
where she spent her time, and so with a fresh collar
and cuffs, and another brush of her hair, she went to
Mrs. Banker, forgetting herself in her pleasure at finding
in the stranger a lady so wholly congenial and familiar,
whose mild, dark eyes rested so kindly on her, and whose
pleasant voice had something motherly in its tone, putting
her at her ease, and making her appear at her very
best.
Mrs. Banker was pleased with Helen, and she felt a
kind of pity for the young girl thrown so suddenly among
strangers, without even her sister to assist her.
“Have you been out at all?” she asked, and upon Helen's
replying that she had not, she answered, “That is
not right. Accustomed to the fresh country air, you will
suffer from too close confinement. Suppose you ride
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with me. My carriage is at the door, and I have a few
hours' leisure. Tell your sister I insist,” she continued,
as Helen hesitated between inclination and what she fancied
was her duty.
To see New York with Mrs. Banker was a treat indeed,
and Helen's heart bounded high as she ran up to Katy's
room with the request.
“Yes, go by all means,” Katy said. “It is so kind in
Mrs. Banker, and so like her, too. I meant that Wilford
should have driven with you to-day, and spoke to him
about it, but Mrs. Banker will do better. Tell her I
thank her so much for her thoughtfulness,” and with a
kiss Katy sent Helen away, while Mrs. Cameron, after
twisting her rings nervously for a moment, said to Katy,
“Perhaps your sister would do well to wear your furs.
Hers are small, and common fitch.”
“Yes, certainly. Take them to her,” Katy answered,
knowing intuitively the feeling which had prompted this
suggestion from her mother-in-law, who hastened to
Helen's room with the rich sable she was to wear in place
of the old fitch.
Helen appreciated the difference at once between her
furs and Katy's, and felt a pang of mortification as she
saw how old and poor and dowdy hers were beside the
others. But they were her own—the best she could afford.
She would not begin by borrowing, and so she
declined the offer, and greatly to Mrs. Cameron's horror
went down to Mrs. Banker clad in the despised furs,
which Mrs. Cameron would on no account have had beside
her on Broadway in an open carriage. Mrs. Banker
noticed them, too, but the eager, happy face, which grew
each moment brighter as they drove down the street,
more than made amends; and in watching that and
pointing out the places which they passed, Mrs. Banker
forgot the furs and the coarse straw hat whose strings
of black had undeniably been dyed. Never in her life
had Helen enjoyed a ride as she did that pleasant winter
day, when her kind friend took her wherever she
wished to go, showing her Broadway in its glory from
Union Square to Wall Street, where they encountered
Mark in the bustling crowd. He saw them, and
beckoned to them, while Helen's face grew red, as,
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lifting his hat to her he came up to the carriage, and at
his mother's suggestion took a seat just opposite, asking
where they had been, and jocosely laughing at his mother's
taste in selecting such localities as the Five Points,
the tombs and Barnum's Museum, when there were so
many finer places to be seen.
Helen felt the hot blood prickling the roots of her hair,
for the Five Points, the Tombs and Barnum's Museum
had been her choice as the points of which she had heard
the most. So when Mark continued,
“You shall ride with me, Miss Lennox, and I will show
you something worth your seeing,” she frankly answered,
“Your mother is not in fault, Mr. Ray. She asked me
where I wished to go, and I mentioned these places; so
please attribute it wholly to my country breeding, and
not to your mother's lack of taste.”
There was something in the frank speech which won
Mrs. Banker's heart, while she felt an increased respect
for the young girl, who, she saw, was keenly sensitive,
even with all her strength of character.
“You were right to commence as you have,” she said,
“for now you have a still greater treat in store, and
Mark shall drive you to the Park some day. I know you
will like that.”
Helen could like anything with that friendly voice to
reassure her, and leaning back she was thinking how
pleasant it was to be in New York, how different from
what she had expected, when a bow from Mark made her
look up in time to see that they were meeting a carriage,
in which sat Wilford, with two gaily dressed ladies, both
of whom gave her a supercilious stare as they passed by,
while the younger of the two half turned her head, as
if for a more prolonged gaze.
“Mrs. Grandon and Juno Cameron,” Mrs. Banker said,
making some further remark to her son, while Helen felt
that the brightness of the day had changed, for she could
not be unconscious of the look with which she had been
regarded by these two fashionable ladies, and again her
furs came up before her, bringing a feeling of which she
was ashamed, especially as she had fancied herself above
all weakness of the kind.
That night at the dinner, from which Mrs. Cameron
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was absent, Wilford was unusually gracious, asking “if
she had enjoyed her ride, and if she did not find Mrs.
Banker a very pleasant acquaintance.”
Wilford felt a little uncomfortable at having suffered a
stranger to do for Katy's sister what should have been
done by himself. Katy had asked him to drive with Helen;
but he had found it very convenient to forget it, and take
a seat instead-with Juno and Mrs. Grandon, the latter of
whom complimented “Miss Lennox's fine intellectual
face,” after they had passed, and complimented it the more
as she saw how it vexed Juno, who could see nothing “in
those bold eyes and that masculine forehead,” just because
their vis-à-vis chanced to be Mark Ray. Juno was
not pleased with Helen's first appearance in the street,
but nevertheless she called upon her next day, with Sybil
Grandon and her sister Bell. To this she was urged
by Sybil, who, having a somewhat larger experience of
human nature, foresaw that Helen would be popular just
because Mrs. Banker had taken her up, and who, besides,
had conceived a capricious fancy to patronize Miss Lennox.
But in this she was foiled, for Helen was not to be
patronized, and she received her visitors with that calm,
assured manner so much a part of herself.
“Diamond cut diamond,” Bell thought, as she saw how
frigidly polite both Juno and Helen were, each recognizing
in the other something antagonistic, which could not
harmonize.
Had Juno never cared for Dr. Grant, or suspected Helen
of standing between herself and him, and had Mark
Ray never stopped at Silverton, or been seen on Broadway
with her, she might have judged her differently, for
there was something attractive in Helen's face and appearance
as she sat talking to her guests, with as much
quiet dignity as if she had never mended Uncle Ephraim's
socks or made a pound of butter among the huckleberry
hills. Bell was delighted, detecting at once traces
of the rare mind which Helen Lennox possessed, and
wondering to find it so.
“I hope we shall see each other often,” she said, at
parting. “I do not go out a great deal myself—that is,
not so much as Juno—but I shall be always glad to
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welcome you to my den. You may find something there to
interest you.”
This was Bell's leave-taking, while Sybil's was, if possible,
more friendly, for she took a perverse kind of pleasure
in annoying Juno, who wondered “what she or Bell
could see to like in that awkward country girl, who she
knew had on one of Katy's cast-off collars, and whose
wardrobe was the most ordinary she ever saw; fitch
furs, think of that!” and Juno gave a little pull at the
fastenings of her rich ermine collar, showing so well over
her velvet basquine.
“Fitch furs or not, they rode with Mark Ray on Broadway,”
Bell retorted, with a wicked look in her eye, which
roused Juno to a still higher pitch of anger, so that by
the time the carriage stopped at No. —, the young lady
was in a most unamiable frame of mind as regarded both
Helen Lennox and the offending Mark.
That evening there was at Mrs. Reynolds's a little company
of thirty or more, and as Mark was present, Juno
seized the opportunity of ascertaining, if possible, his
real opinion of Helen Lennox, joking him first about his
having taken her to ride so soon, and insinuating that
he must have a penchant for every new and pretty face.
“Then you think her pretty? You have called on
her?” Mark replied, his manner evincing so much pleasure
that Juno bit her lip to keep down her wrath, and
flashing upon him her scornful eyes, replied, “Yes, Sybil
and Bell insisted that I should. Of myself I would
never have done it, for I have now more acquaintances
than I can attend to, and do not care to increase the list.
Besides that, I do not imagine that Miss Lennox can in
any way add to my happiness, brought up as she has
been among the woods and hills, you know.”
“Yes, I have been there—to her home, I mean,” Mark
rejoined, and Juno continued:
“Only for a moment, though. You should have staid,
like Will, to appreciate it fully. I wish you could hear
him describe the feather beds on which he slept—that is,
describe them before he decided to take Katy; for after
that he was chary of his remarks, and the feathers by
some marvelous process were changed into hair, for what
he knew or cared.”
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Mark hesitated a moment, and then said, quietly,
“I have staid there all night, and have tested that
feather bed, but found nothing disparaging to Helen, who
was as much a lady in the farm-house as here in the city.”
There was a look of withering scorn on Juno's face as
she replied,
“Pray, how long since you took to visiting Silverton
so frequently—becoming so familiar as to spend the
night?”
There was no mistaking the jealousy which betrayed
itself in every tone of Juno's voice as she stood before
Mark, a fit picture of the enraged goddess whose name
she bore. Soon recollecting herself, however, she changed
her mode of attack, and said, laughingly,
“Seriously, though, this Miss Lennox seems a very
nice girl, and is admirably fitted, I think, for the position
she is to fill—that of a country physician's wife,” and in
the black eyes there was a wicked sparkle as Juno saw
that her meaning was readily understood, Mark looking
quickly at her, and asking if she referred to Dr. Grant.
“Certainly; I imagine that was settled as long ago as
we met him in Paris. Once I thought it might have
been our Katy, but was mistaken. I think the doctor
and Miss Lennox well adapted to each other.”
There was for a moment a dull, heavy pain at Mark's
heart, caused by that little item of information which
made him so uncomfortable. On the whole he did not
doubt it, for everything he could recall of Morris had a
tendency to strengthen the belief. Nothing could be
more probable, thrown together as they had been, without
other congenial society, and nothing could be more
suitable.
“They are well matched,” Mark thought, as he walked
listlessly through Mrs. Reynolds's parlors, seeing only
one face, and that the face of Helen Lennox, with the lily
in her hair, just as it looked when she tied the apron
about his neck and laughed at his appearance.
Helen was not the ideal which in his boyhood Mark
had cherished of the one who was to be his wife, for that
was of a woman more like Juno, with whom he had always
been on the best of terms, giving her some reason
for believing herself the favored one; but ideals change
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as years go on, and Helen Lennox had more attractions
for him now than the most dashing belle of his acquaintance.
“I do not believe I am in love with her,” he said to
himself when, after his return from Mrs. Reynolds's he
sat for a long time before the fire in his dressing-room,
cogitating upon what he had heard, and wondering why
it should affect him so much. “Of course I am not,” he
continued, feeling the necessity of reiterating the assertion
by way of making himself believe it. “She is not
at all what I used to imagine the future Mrs. Mark Ray
to be. Half my friends would say she had no style, no
beauty, and perhaps she has not. Certainly she does not
look just like the ladies at Mrs. Reynolds's to-night, but
give her the same advantages and she would surpass
them all.”
And then Mark Ray went off into a reverie, in which
he saw Helen Lennox his wife, and with the aids by
which he would surround her, rapidly developing into as
splendid a woman as little Katy Cameron, who did not
need to be developed, but took all hearts at once by that
natural, witching grace so much a part of herself. It
was a very pleasant picture which Mark painted upon
the mental canvas; but there came a great blur blotting
out its brightness as he remembered Dr. Grant.
“But it shall not interfere with my being just as kind
to her as before. She will need some attendant here, and
Wilford will be glad to shove her off his hands. He is
so infernal proud,” Mark said, and taking a fresh cigar
he finished his reverie with the magnanimous resolve
that were Helen a hundred times engaged she should be
his especial care during her sojourn in New York.
-- 188 -- p591-193
CHAPTER XXII. HELEN IN SOCIETY.
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IT was three days before Christmas, and Katy was
talking confidentially to Mrs. Banker, whom she
had asked to see the next time she called.
“I want so much to surprise her,” she said,
speaking in a whisper, “and you have been so kind to us
both that I thought it might not trouble you very much
if I asked you to make the selection for me, and see to
the engraving. Wilford gave me fifty dollars, all I
needed, as I had fifty more of my own, and now that I
have a baby, I am sure I shall never again care to go
out.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Banker said, thoughtfully, as she rolled
up the bills, “you wish me to get as heavy bracelets as I
can find—for the hundred dollars.”
“Yes,” Katy replied, “I think that will please her,
don't you?”
Mrs. Banker did not reply at once, for she felt certain
that the hundred dollars could be spent in a manner
more satisfactory to Helen. Still she hardly liked to interfere,
until Katy, observing her hesitancy, asked again
if she did not think Helen would be pleased.
“Yes, pleased with anything you choose to give her,
but—excuse me, dear Mrs. Cameron, if I speak as openly
as if I were the mother of you both. Bracelets are suitable
for you who have everything else, but is there not
something your sister needs more? Now, allowing me to
suggest, I should say, buy her some furs, and let the
bracelets go. In Silverton her furs were well enough,
but here, as the sister of Mrs. Wilford Cameron, she is
deserving of better.”
Katy understood Mrs. Banker at once, her cheeks reddening
as there flashed upon her the reason why Wilford
had never yet been in the street with Helen, notwithstanding
that she had more than once requested it.
“You are right,” she said. “It was thoughtless in me
not to think of this myself. Helen shall have the furs,
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and whatever else is necessary. I am so glad you reminded
me of it. You are as kind as my own mother,”
and Katy kissed her friend fondly as she bade her good-bye,
charging her a dozen times not to let Helen know
the surprise in store for her.
There was little need of this caution, for Mrs. Banker
understood human nature too well to divulge a matter
which might wound one as sensitive as Helen. Between
the latter and herself there was a strong bond of friendship,
and to the kind patronage of this lady Helen owed
most of the attentions she had as yet received from her
sister's friends, while Mark Ray did much toward lifting
her to the place she held in spite of the common country
dress, which Juno unsparingly criticised, and which, in
fact, kept Wilford from taking her out as his wife so often
asked him to do. And Helen, too, keenly felt the
difference between herself and those with whom she
came in contact, crying over it more than once, but never
dreaming of the surprise in store for her, when on
Christmas morning she went as usual to Katy's room,
finding her alone, her face all aglow with excitement, and
her bed a perfect show-case of dry goods, which she
bade Helen examine and say how she liked them.
Wilford was no niggard with his money, and when
Katy had asked for more it had been given unsparingly,
even though he knew the purpose to which it was to be
applied.
“Oh, Katy, Katy, why did you do it?” Helen cried,
her tears falling like rain through the fingers she clasped
over her eyes.
“You are not angry?” Katy said, in some dismay, as
Helen continued to sob without looking at the handsome
furs, the stylish hat, the pretty cloak, and rich patterns
of blue and black silk, which Mrs. Banker had selected.
“No, oh no!” Helen replied. “I know it was all
meant well; but there is something in me which rebels
against taking this from Wilford, and placing myself under
so great obligation to him.”
“It was a pleasure for him to do it,” Katy said, trying
to reassure her sister, until she grew calm enough to examine
and admire the Christmas gifts upon which no
expense had been spared. Much as we may ignore
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dress, and sinful as is an inordinate love for it, there is
yet about it an influence for good, when the heart of the
wearer is right, holding it subservient to all higher, holier
affections. At least Helen Lennox found it so, when
clad in her new garments, she drove with Mrs. Banker,
or returned Sybil Grandon's call, feeling that there was
about her nothing for which Katy need to blush, or even
Wilford, who was not afraid to be seen with her now,
and Helen, while knowing the reason of the change, did
not feel like quarreling with him for it, but accepted with
a good-natured grace all that made her life in New York
so happy. With Bell Cameron she was on the best of
terms; while Sybil Grandon, always going with the tide,
professed for her an admiration, which, whether fancied
or real, did much toward making her popular; and when,
as the mistress of her brother's house, she issued cards
of invitation for a large party, she took especial pains to
insist upon Helen's attending, even if Katy were not able.
But from this Helen shrank. She could not meet so
many strangers alone, she said, and so the matter was
dropped, until Mrs. Banker offered to chaperone her,
when Helen began to waver, changing her mind at last
and promising to go.
Never since the days of her first party had Katy been
so wild with excitement as she was in helping to dress
Helen, who scarcely knew herself when, before the mirror,
with the blaze of the chandelier falling upon her,
she saw the picture of a young girl arrayed in rich pink
silk, with an overskirt of lace, and the light pretty cloak,
just thrown upon her uncovered neck, where Katy's
pearls were shining.
“What would they say at home if they could only see
you?” Katy exclaimed, throwing back the handsome
cloak so as to show more of the well-shaped neck, gleaming
so white beneath it.
“Aunt Betsy would say I had forgotten half my dress,”
Helen replied, blushing as she glanced at the arms,
which never since her childhood had been thus exposed
to view, except at such times as her household duties
had required it.
Even this exception would not apply to the low neck,
at which Helen had long demurred, yielding finally to
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Katy's entreaties, but often wondering what Mark Ray
would think, and if he would not be shocked. Mark
Ray had been strangely blended with all Helen's thoughts
as she submitted herself to Esther's practiced hands, and
when the hair-dresser, summoned to her aid, asked what
flowers she would wear, it was a thought of him which
led her to select a single water-lily, which looked as
natural as if its bed had really been the bosom of Fairy
Pond.
“Nothing else? Surely mademoiselle will have these
few green leaves?” Celine had said, but Helen would
have nothing save the lily, which was twined tastefully
amid the heavy braids of the brown hair, whose length and
luxuriance had thrown the hair-dresser into ecstasies of
delight, and made Esther lament that in these days of
false tresses no one would give Miss Lennox credit for
what was wholly her own.
“You will be the belle of the evening,” Katy said, as
she kissed her sister good night and then ran back to
her baby, while Wilford, yielding to her importunities
that he should not remain with her, followed Mrs. Banker's
carriage in his own private conveyance, and was soon
set down at Sybil Grandon's door.
Meanwhile, at the elder Cameron's there had been a
discussion touching the propriety of their taking Helen
under their protection, instead of leaving her for Mrs.
Banker to chaperone, Bell insisting that it ought to be
done, while the father swore roundly at Juno, who would
not “be bothered with that country girl.”
“You would rather leave her wholly to Mark Ray and
his mother, I suppose,” Bell said, adding, as she saw the
flush on Juno's face, “You know you are dying of jealousy,
and nothing annoys you so much as to hear people talk
of Mark's attentions to Miss Lennox.”
“Do they talk?” Mrs. Cameron asked quickly, while in
her grey eyes there gleamed a light far more dangerous
and threatening to Helen than Juno's open scorn.
Mrs. Cameron had long intended Mark Ray for her
daughter, and accustomed to have everything bend to her
wishes, she had come to consider the matter as certain,
even though he had never proposed in words. He had
done everything else, she thought, attending Juno
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constantly, and frequenting their house so much that it was
a standing joke for his friends to seek him there when he
was not at home or at his office. Latterly, however,
there had been a change, and the ambitious mother
could not deny that since Helen's arrival in New York
Mark had visited them less frequently and staid a
shorter time, while she had more than once heard of him
at her son's in company with Helen. Very rapidly atrain
of thought passed through her mind; but it did
not manifest itself upon her face, which was composed
and quiet as she decided with Juno that Helen should
not trouble them. With the utmost care Juno arrayed
herself for the party, thinking with a great deal of complacency
how impossible it was for Helen Lennox to
compete with her in point of dress.
“She is such a prude, I dare say she will go in that
blue silk, with the long sleeves and high neck, looking
like a Dutch doll,” she said to Bell, as she shook back
the folds of her rich crimson, and turned her head to see
the effect of her wide braids of hair.
“I am not certain that a high dress is worse than
bones,” Bell retorted, playfully touching Juno's neck,
which, though white and gracefully formed, was shockingly
guiltless of flesh.
There was an angry reply, and then, wrapping her
cloak about her, Juno went out to their carriage, and was
ere long one of the gay crowd thronging Sybil Grandon's
parlors. Helen had not yet arrived, and Juno was hoping
she would not come, when there was a stir at the
door and Mrs. Banker appeared, and with her Helen
Lennox, but so transformed that Juno hardly knew her,
looking twice ere sure that the beautiful young lady, so
wholly self-possessed, was the country girl she affected
to despise.
“Who is she?” was asked by many, who at once acknowledged
her claims to their attention, and as soon as
practicable sought her acquaintance, so that Helen suddenly
found herself the centre of a little court of which
she was the queen and Mark her sworn knight.
Presuming upon his mother's chaperonage, he claimed
the right of attending her, and Juno's glory waned as
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effectually as it had done when Katy was the leading star
to which New York paid homage.
Juno had been annoyed then, but now fierce jealousy
took possession of her heart as she watched the girl
whom all seemed to admire, even Wilford feeling a thrill
of pride that the possession of so attractive a sister-in-law
reflected credit upon himself.
He was not ashamed of her now, nor did he retain a
single thought of the farm-house or Uncle Ephraim as
he made his way to her side, standing protectingly at her
left, just as Mark was standing at her right, and at last
asking her to dance.
With a heightened color Helen declined, saying frankly
“I have never learned.”
“You miss a great deal,” Wilford rejoined, appealing
to Mark for a confirmation of his words.
But Mark did not heartily respond. He, too, had
solicited Helen as a partner when the dancing first commenced,
and her quiet refusal had disappointed him a
little, for Mark was fond of dancing, and though as a
general thing he disapproved of waltzes and polkas when
he was the looker-on, he felt that there would be something
vastly agreeable and exhilarating in clasping Helen
in his arm and whirling her about the room just as Juno
was being whirled by a young cadet, a friend of Lieutenant
Bob's. But when he reflected that not his arm alone
would encircle her waist, or his breath touch her neck, he
was glad she did not dance, and professing a weariness
he did not feel, he declined to join the dancers on the
floor, but kept with Helen, enjoying what she enjoyed,
and putting her so perfectly at her ease that no one would
ever have dreamed of the curdy cheeses she had made,
or the pounds of butter she had churned. But Mark
thought of it as he secretly admired the neck and arms,
seen once before, on that memorable day when he assisted
Helen in the labors of the dairy. If nothing else had
done so, the lily in her hair would have brought that
morning to his mind, and once as they walked up and
down the hall he spoke of the ornament she had chosen,
and how well it became her.
“Pond lilies are my pets,” he said, “and I have kept
one of those I gathered when at Silverton. Do you
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remember them?” and his eyes rested upon Helen with a
look which made her blush as she answered yes; but she
did not tell him of a little box at home, made of cones
and acorns, where was hidden a withered water lily,
which she could not throw away, even after its beauty
and fragrance had departed.
Had she told him this, it might have put to flight the
doubts troubling Mark so much, and making him wonder
if Dr. Grant had really a claim upon the girl stealing
his heart so fast.
“I mean to sound her,” he thought, and as Lieutenant
Bob passed by, making some jocose remark about his
offending all the fair ones by the course he was taking,
Mark said to Helen, who suggested returning to the parlor,
“As you like, though it cannot matter; a person
known to be engaged is above Bob Reynolds's jokes.”
Quick as thought the blood stained Helen's face and
neck, for Mark had made a most egregious blunder, giving
her the impression that he was the engaged one
referred to, not herself, and for a moment she forgot the
gay scene around her in the sharpness of the pang with
which she recognized all that Mark Ray was to her.
“It was kind in him to warn me. I wish it had been
sooner,” she thought, and then with a bitter feeling of
shame she wondered how much he had guessed of her
real feelings, and who the betrothed one was. “Not
Juno Cameron,” she hoped, as after a few moments Mrs.
Cameron came up and, adroitly detaching Mark from her
side, took his place while he sauntered to a group of
ladies and was ere long dancing merrily with Juno.
“They are a well-matched pair,” Mrs. Cameron said,
assuming a very confidential manner towards Helen,
who assented to the remark, while the lady continued,
“There is but one thing wrong about Mark Ray. He
is a most unscrupulous flirt, pleased with every new face,
and this of course annoys Juno.”
“Are they engaged?” came involuntarily from Helen's
lips, while Mrs. Cameron's foot beat the carpet with a
very becoming hesitancy, as she replied, “That was settled
in our family a long time ago. Wilford and Mark
have always been like brothers.”
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Mrs. Cameron could not quite bring herself to a deliberate
falsehood, which, if detected, would reflect upon
her character as a lady, but she could mislead Helen,
and she continued, “It is not like us to bruit our affairs
abroad, and were my daughters ten times engaged the
world would be none the wiser. I doubt if even Katy
suspects what I have admitted; but knowing how fascinating
Mark can be, and that just at present he seems
to be pleased with you, I have acted as I should wish a
friend to act toward my own child. I have warned you
in time. Were it not that you are one of our family, I
might not have interfered, and I trust you not to repeat
even to Katy what I have said.”
Helen nodded assent, while in her heart was a wild
tumult of feelings—flattered pride, disappointment, indignation,
and mortification all struggling for the mastery—
mortification to feel that she who had quietly ignored
such a passion as love when connected with herself,
had, nevertheless, been pleased with the attentions
of one who was only amusing himself with her, as a
child amuses itself with some new toy soon to be thrown
aside—indignation at him for vexing Juno at her expense—
disappointment that he should care for such as Juno,
and flattered pride that Mrs. Cameron should include
her in “our family.” Helen had as few weak points as
most young ladies, but she was not free from them all,
and the fact that Mrs. Cameron had taken her into a
confidence which even Katy did not share, was soothing
to her ruffled spirits, particularly as after that confidence,
Mrs. Cameron was excessively gracious to her, introducing
her to many whom she did not know before, and
paying her numberless little attentions, which made
Juno stare, while the clear-seeing Bell arched her eyebrows,
and wondered for what Helen was to be made a
cat's paw by her clever mother. Whatever it was it did
not appear, save as it showed itself in Helen's slightly
changed demeanor when Mark again sought her society,
and tried to bring back to her face the look he had left
there. But something had come between them, and the
young man racked his brain to find the cause of this sudden
indifference in one who had been pleased with him
only a short half hour before.
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“It's that confounded waltzing which disgusted her,”
he said, “and no wonder, for if ever a man looks like an
idiot, it is when he is kicking up his heels to the sound
of a fiddle, and whirling some woman whose skirts sweep
everything within the circle of a rod, and whose face
wears that die-away expression I have so often noticed.
I've half a mind to swear I'll never dance again.”
But Mark was too fond of dancing to quit it at once,
and finding Helen still indifferent, he yielded to circumstances,
and the last she saw of him, as at a comparative
early hour she left the gay scene, he was dancing again
with Juno. It was a heavy blow to Helen, for she had
become greatly interested in Mark Ray, whose attentions
had made her stay in New York so pleasant. But
these were over now;—at least the excitement they
brought was over, and Helen, as she sat in her dressing
room at home, and thought of the future as well as the
past, felt stealing over her a sense of desolation and loneliness
such as she had experienced but once before, and
that on the night when leaning from her window at the
farm-house where Mark Ray was stopping she had shuddered
and shrank from living all her days among the
rugged hills of Silverton. New York had opened an entirely
new world to her, showing her much that was vain
and frivolous, with much too that was desirable and
good; and if there had crept into her heart the thought
that a life with such people as Mrs. Banker and those
who frequented her house would be preferable to a life
in Silverton, where only Morris understood her, it was
but the natural result of daily intercourse with one who
had studied to please and interest as Mark Ray had
done. But Helen had too much good sense and strength
of will, long to indulge in what she would have called
“love-sick regrets” in others, and she began to devise
the best course for her to adopt hereafter, concluding
finally to treat him much as she had done, lest he should
suspect how deeply she had been wounded. Now that
she knew of his engagement, it would be an easy matter
so to demean herself as neither to annoy Juno nor vex
him. Thoroughly now she understood why Juno Cameron
had seemed to dislike her so much.
“It is natural,” she said, “and yet I honestly believe
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I like her better for knowing what I do. There must be
some good beneath that proud exterior, or Mark would
never seek her.”
Still, look at it from any point she chose, it seemed a
strange, unsuitable match, and Helen's heart ached sadly
as she finally retired to rest, thinking what might have
been had Juno Cameron found some other lover more
like herself than Mark could ever be.
CHAPTER XXIII. BABY'S NAME.
WILFORD had wished for a son, and in the first
moment of disappointment he had almost been
conscious of a resentful feeling toward Katy, who
had given him only a daughter. A boy, a Cameron
heir, was something of which to be proud; but a
little girl, scarcely larger than the last doll with which
Katy had played, was a different thing, and it required
all Wilford's philosophy and common sense to keep him
from showing his chagrin to the girlish creature, whose
love had fastened with an idolatrous grasp upon her
child, clinging to it with a devotion which made Helen
tremble as she thought what if God should take it from
her.
“He won't, oh, he won't,” Katy said, when once she
suggested the possibility, and in the eyes usually so
soft and gentle there was a fierce gleam, as Katy hugged
her baby closer to her and said,
“God does not willfully torment us. He will not take
my baby, when my whole life would die with it. I had
almost forgotten to pray, there was so much else to do,
till baby came, but now I never go to sleep at night or
waken in the morning, that there does not come a prayer
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of thanks for baby given to me. I could hardly love
God if he took her away.”
There was a chill feeling at Helen's heart as she listened
to her sister and then glanced at the baby so passionately
loved. In time it would be pretty, for it had
Katy's perfect features, and the hair just beginning to
grow was a soft, golden brown; but it was too small now,
too puny to be handsome, while in its eyes there was a
scared, hunted kind of look, which chafed Wilford more
than aught else could have done, for that was the look
which had crept into Katy's eyes at Newport when she
found she was not going home.
Many discussions had been held at the elder Cameron's
concerning its name, Mrs. Cameron deciding finally that
it should bear her own, Margaret Augusta, while Juno advocated
that of Rose Marie, inasmuch as their new clergyman
would Frenchify the pronunciation so perfectly,
rolling the r, and placing so much accent on the last syllable.
At this the father Cameron swore as “cussed nonsense.”
“Better call it Jemima, a grand sight, than saddle
it with such a silly name as Rose Mah-ree, with a roll to
the r,” and with another oath the disgusted old man departed,
while Bell suggested that Katy might wish to
have a voice in naming her own child.
This was a possibility that had formed no part of Mrs.
Cameron's thoughts, or Juno's. Of course Katy would
acquiesce in whatever Wilford said was best, and he
always thought as they did. Consequently there would
be no trouble whatever. It was time the child had a
name,—time it wore the elegant christening robe, Mrs.
Cameron's gift, which cost more money than would
have fed a hungry family for weeks. The matter must
be decided, and with a view of deciding it, a family dinner
party was held at No. —, Fifth Avenue, the day succeeding
Sybil Grandon's party.
Very pure and beautiful Katy looked as she took her
old place in the chair they called hers at father Cameron's,
because it was the one she had always preferred to
any other,—a large, motherly easy-chair, which took in
nearly the whole of her petite figure, and against whose
soft cushioned back she leaned her curly head with a
pretty air of importance, as, after dinner was over, she
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came back to the parlor with the other ladies, and waited
for the gentlemen to join them, when they were to talk
up baby's name.
Katy knew exactly what it would be called, but as Wilford
had never asked her, she was keeping it a secret, not
doubting that the others would be quite as much delighted
as herself with the novel name. Not long before
her illness she had read an English story, which had in
it a Genevra, and she had at once seized upon it as the
most delightful cognomen a person could well possess.
“Genevra Cameron!” She had repeated it to herself
many a time as she sat with her baby in her lap. She
had written it on sundry slips of paper, which had afterwards
found their way into the grate; and once she had
scratched with her diamond ring upon the window pane
in her dressing-room, where it now stood in legible characters,
“Genevra Cameron!” There should be no middle
name to take from the sweetness of the first—only Genevra—
that was sufficient; and the little lady tapped her
foot impatiently upon the carpet, wishing Wilford and
his father would hurry and come in.
Never for an instant had it entered her mind that she,
as the mother, would not be permitted to call her baby
what she chose; so when she heard Mrs. Cameron speaking
to Helen of Margaret Augusta, she smiled complacently,
tossing her curls of golden brown, and thinking
to herself, “Maggie Cameron—pretty enough, but not
like Genevra. Indeed, I shall not have any Margarets
now; next time perhaps I may.”
The gentlemen came at last, and father Cameron drew
his chair close to Katy's side, laying his hand on her
little soft warm one, and giving it a squeeze as the bright
face glanced lovingly into his. Father Cameron had
grown a milder, gentler man since Katy came. He now
went much oftener into society, and did not so frequently
shock his wife with expressions and opinions which she
held as heterodox. Katy had a softening influence over
him, and he loved her as well perhaps as he had ever
loved his own children.
“Better,” Juno said; and now she touched Bell's arm,
to have her see “how father was petting Katy.”
But Bell did not care, while Wilford was pleased, and
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himself drew nearer the chair, standing just behind it,
so that Katy could not see him as he smoothed her curly
head, and said, half indifferently, “Now for the all-important
name. What shall we call our daughter?”
“Let your mother speak first,” Katy said, and thus
appealed to, Mrs. Cameron came up to Wilford and expressed
her preference for Margaret, as being a good
name, an aristocratic name, and her own.
“Yes, but not half so pretty and striking as Rose
Marie,” Juno chimed in.
“Rose Mary! Thunder!” father Cameron exclaimed.
“Call her a marygold, or a sunflower, just as much.
Don't go to being fools by giving a child a heathenish
name. Give us your opinion, Katy.”
“I have known from the first,” Katy replied, “and
I am sure you will agree with me. 'Tis a beautiful
name of a sweet young girl, and there was a great secret
about her, too—Genevra, baby will be called,” and Katy
looked straight into the fire, wholly unconscious of the
effect that name had produced upon Wilford and his
mother.
Wilford's face was white as marble, and his eyes turned
quickly to his mother, who, in her first shock, started so
violently as to throw down from the stand a costly vase,
which was broken in many pieces. This occasioned a
little diversion, and by the time the flowers and fragments
were gathered up, Wilford's lips were not quite so
livid, but he dared not trust his voice yet, and listened
while his sisters gave their opinion of the name, Bell deciding
for it at once, and Juno hesitating until she had
heard from a higher power than Katy.
“What put that fanciful name into your head?” Mrs.
Cameron asked.
Katy explained, and with the removal of the fear,
which for a few moments had chilled his blood, Wilford
grew calm again; while into his heart there crept the
thought that by giving that name to his child, some
slight atonement might be made to her above whose
head the English daisies had blossomed and faded many
a year. But not so with his mother;—the child should
not be called Genevra if she could prevent it; and she
opposed it with all her powers, offering at last, as a great
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concession on her part, to let it bear the name of either
of Katy's family—Hannah and Betsy excepted, of course
Lucy Lennox, Helen Lennox, Katy Lennox, anything
but Genevra. As usual, Wilford, when he learned her
mind, joined with her, notwithstanding his secret preference,
and the discussion became quite warm, especially
as Katy evinced a willfulness for which Helen had
never given her credit. Hitherto she had been as yielding
as wax, but on this point she was firm, gathering
strength from the fact that Wilford did not oppose her
as he usually did. She could not, perhaps, have resisted
him, but his manner was not very decided, and so she
quietly persisted, “Genevra or nothing,” until the others
gave up the contest, hoping she would feel differently
after a few days' reflection. But Katy knew she shouldn't,
and Helen could not overcome the exultation with which
she saw her little sister put the Camerons to rout and remain
master of the field.
“After all it does not matters,” Mrs. Cameron said to
her daughters, when, after Mrs. Wilford was gone, she
sat talking of Katy's queer fancy and her obstinacy in
adhering to it. “It does not matter, and on the whole I
had as soon the christening would be postponed until
the child is more presentable than now. It will be prettier
by and by, and the dress will become it better. We
can afford to wait.”
This heartless view of the case was readily adopted
by Juno, while Bell professed to be terribly shocked at
hearing them talk thus of a baptism, as if it were a
mere show and nothing more, wondering if the Saviour
thought of dress or personal appearance when the Hebrew
mothers brought their children to him. But little
did Mrs. Cameron or Juno care for the baptism except
as a display, and as both would be much prouder of a
fine-looking child, they were well content to wait until
such time as Katy should incline more favorably to their
Margaret or Rose Marie. To Helen it seemed highly
probable that after a private interview with Wilford Katy
would change her mind, and she felt a wickedly agreeable
degree of disappointment when, on the day following
the dinner party, she found her sister even more resolved
than ever upon having her own way. Like the
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Camerons, she did not feel the necessity of haste,—time enough
by and by, when she would not have so much opposition
to encounter, she said; and as Wilford did not care, it
was finally arranged that they would wait awhile ere
they gave a cognomen to the little nameless child, only
known as Baby Cameron.
CHAPTER XXIV. TROUBLE IN THE HOUSEHOLD.
AS soon as it was understood that Mrs. Wilford
Cameron was able to go out, there were scores of
pressing invitations from the gay world which had
missed her so much, but Katy declined them all
on the plea that baby needed her care. She was happier
at home, and as a mother it was her place to stay there.
At first Wilford listened quietly, but when he found it
was her fixed determination to abjure society entirely, he
interfered in his cool, decisive way, which always carried
its point.
“It was foolish to take that stand,” he said. “Other
mothers went and why should not she? She had already
staid in too much. She was injuring herself, and”—what
was infinitely worse to Wilford — “she was losing her
good looks.”
As proof of this he led her to the glass, showing her
the pale, thin face and unnaturally large eyes, so distasteful
to him. Wilford Cameron was very proud of his
handsome house,—proud to know that everything there
was in keeping with his position and wealth, but when
Katy was immured in the nursery, the bright picture was
obscured, for it needed her presence to make it perfect,
and he began to grow dissatisfied with his surroundings,
while abroad he missed her quite as much, finding the
opera, the party or the reception, insipid where she was
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not, and feeling fully conscious that Wilford Cameron,
without a wife, and that wife Katy, was not a man of half
the consequence he had thought himself to be. Even
Sybil Grandon did not think it worth her while to court
his attention, if Katy were not present, for unless some
one saw and felt her triumph it ceased directly to be one.
On the whole Wilford was not well pleased with society as
he found it this winter, and knowing where the trouble
lay he resolved that Katy should no longer remain at
home, growing pale and faded and losing her good looks.
Wilford would not have confessed it, and perhaps was
not himself aware of the fact, that Katy's beauty was
quite as dear to him as Katy herself. If she lost it her
value was decreased accordingly, and so as a prudent
husband it behooved him to see that what was so very
precious was not unnecessarly thrown away. It did not
take long for Katy to understand that her days of quiet
were at an end,—that neither crib nor cradle could avail
her longer. Mrs. Kirby, selected from a host of applicants,
was wholly competent for Baby Cameron, and
Katy must throw aside the mother which sat so prettily
upon her and become again the belle. It was a sad trial,
but Katy knew that submission was the only alternative,
and so when Mrs. Banker's invitation came, she accepted
it at once, but there was a sad look upon her face as she
kissed her baby for the twentieth time ere going to her
dressing maid.
Never until this night had Helen realized how beautiful
Katy was when in full evening dress, and her exclamations
of delight brought a soft flush to Katy's cheek,
while she felt a thrill of the olden vanity as she saw herself
once more arrayed in all her costly apparel. Helen
did not wonder at Wilford's desire to have Katy with
him, and very proudly she watched her young sister as
Esther twined the flowers in her hair and then brought
out the ermine cloak she was to wear as a protection
against the cold.
Wilford was standing by her, making a few suggestions
and expressing his approbation in a way which
reminded Helen of that night before the marriage, when
Katy's dress had been condemned, and of that sadder,
bitterer time when she had poured her tears like rain
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into that trunk returned. All she had thought of Wilford
then was now more than confirmed, but he was kind
to her and very proud of Katy, so she forced back her
feelings of disquiet, which, however, were roused again
when she saw the dark look on his face, as Katy, at the
very last, ran to the nursery to kiss baby good-bye, sucing
this time in waking it, as was proven by the cry
which made Wilford scowl angrily and brought to his
lips a word of rebuke for Katy's childishness.
The party was not so large as that at Sybil Grandon's,
but it was more select, and Helen enjoyed it better, meeting
people who readily appreciated the peculiarities of
her mind, and who would have made her forget all else
around her if she had not been a guest at Mark Ray's
house. It was the first time she had met him away from
home since the night at Mrs. Grandon's, and as if forgetful
of her reserve, he paid her numberless attentions,
which, coming from the master of the house, were the
more to be valued.
With a quiet dignity Helen received them all, the
thought once creeping into her heart that she was preferred,
notwithstanding that engagement. But she
soon repudiated this idea as unworthy of her. She
could not be wholly happy with one who, to win her
hand, had trampled upon the affections of another, even
if that other were Juno Cameron.
And so she kept out of his way as much as possible,
watching her sister admiringly as she moved about with
an easy, assured grace, or floated like a snowflake through
the dance in which Wilford persuaded her to join, looking
after her with a proud, all-absorbing feeling, which
left no room for Sybil Grandon's coquettish advances.
As if the reappearance of Katy had awakened all that
was weak and silly in Sybil's nature, she again put forth
her powers of attraction, but met only with defeat. Katy,
and even Helen, was preferred before her,—both belles
of a different type; but both winning golden laurels
from those who hardly knew which to admire more—
Katy, with her pure, delicate beauty and charming simplicity,
or Helen, with her attractive face, and sober,
quiet manner. But Katy grew tired early. She could
not endure what she once did; and when she came to
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Wilford with a weary look upon her face, and asked him
to go home, he did not refuse, though Mark, who was
near, protested against their leaving so soon.
“Surely Miss Lennox might remain; the carriage could
be sent back for her; and he had hardly seen her at all.”
But Miss Lennox chose to go; and after her white cloak
and hood had passed through the door into the street,
there was nothing attractive for Mark in his crowded
parlors, and he was glad when the last guest had departed,
and he was left alone with his mother.
Operas, parties, receptions, dinners, matinées, morning
calls, drives, visits, and shopping; how fast one crowded
upon the other, leaving scarcely an hour of leisure to the
devotee of fashion who attended to them all. How astonished
Helen was to find what high life in New York implied,
and she ceased to wonder that so many of the young
girls grew haggard and old before their time, or that the
dowagers grew selfish and hard and scheming. She should
die outright, she thought, and she pitied poor little
Katy, who, having once returned to the world, seemed
destined to remain there, in spite of her entreaties and
the excuses she made for declining the invitations which
poured in so fast.
“Baby was not well—Baby needed her,” was the plea
with which she met Wilford's arguments, until the mention
of his child was sure to bring a scowl upon his face,
and it became a question in Helen's mind whether he
would not be happier if Baby had never come between
him and his ambition.
To hear Katy's charms extolled, and know that he was
envied the possession of so rare a gem, feeling all the
while sure of her faith, was Wilford's great delight, and
it is not strange that, without any very strong fatherly
feeling or principle of right in that respect, he should
be irritated by the little life so constantly interfering
with his pleasure and so surely undermining Katy's
health. For Katy did not improve, as Wilford hoped
she might; and with his two hands he could span her
slender waist, while the beautiful neck and shoulders were
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no longer worn uncovered, for Katy would not display
her bones, whatever the fashion might be. In this dilemma
Wilford sought his mother, and the result of that
consultation brought a more satisfied look to his face
than it had worn for many a day.
“Strange he had never thought of it, when it was
what so many people did,” he said to himself as he hurried
home. “It was the very best thing both for Katy
and the child, and would obviate every difficulty.”
Next morning as she sometimes did when more than
usually fatigued, Katy breakfasted in bed; while Wilford's
face, as he sat opposite Helen at the table, had on
it a look of quiet determination, such as she had rarely
seen there before. In a measure, accustomed to his
moods, she felt that something was wrong, and never
dreaming that he intended honoring her with his confidence,
she was wishing he would finish his coffee and
leave, when, motioning the servant from the room, he
said abruptly, and in a tone which roused Helen's antagonistic
powers at once, it was so cool, so decided, “I believe
you have more influence over your sister than I
have; at least, she has latterly shown a willfulness in disregarding
me and a willingness to listen to you, which
confirms me in this conclusion—”
“Well,” and Helen twisted her napkin ring nervously,
waiting for him to say more; but her manner disconcerted
him, making him a little uncertain as to what might
be hidden behind that rigid face, and a little doubtful as to
the expression it would put on when he had said all he
meant to say.
He did not expect it to wear a look as frightened and
hopeless as Katy's did when he last saw it upon the pillow,
for he knew how different the two sisters were, and
much as he had affected to despise Helen Lennox, he
was afraid of her now. It had never occurred to him
before that he was somewhat uncomfortable in her presence—
that her searching brown eyes often held him in
check; but it came to him now, that his wife's sister had
a will almost as firm as his own, and she was sure to
take Katy's part. He saw it in her face, even though
she had no idea of what he meant to say.
He must explain sometime, and so at last he continued:
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“You must have seen how opposed Katy is to complying
with my wishes, setting them at naught, when she knows
how much pleasure she would give me by yielding as she
used to do.”
“I don't know what you mean,” Helen replied, “unless
it is her aversion to going out, as that, I think, is
the only point where her obedience has not been absolute.”
Wilford did not like the words obedience and absolute;
that is, he did not like the sound. Their definition suited
him, but Helen's enunciation was at fault, and he answered
quickly, “I do not require absolute obedience
from Katy. I never did; but in this matter to which
you refer, I think she might consult my wishes as well as
her own. There is no reason for her secluding herself in
the nursery as she does. Do you think there is?”
He put the question direct, and Helen answered it.
“I do not believe Katy means to displease you, but
she has conceived a strong aversion for festive scenes,
and besides baby is not healthy, you know, and like all
young mothers, she may be over-anxious, while I fancy
she has not the fullest confidence in the nurse, and this
may account for her unwillingness to leave the child
with her.”
“Kirby was all that was desirable,” Wilford replied.
“His mother had taken her from a genteel, respectable
house in Bond street, and he paid her an enormous price,
consequently she must be right;” and then came the
story that his mother had decided that neither Katy nor
baby would improve so long as they remained together;
that for both a separation was desirable; that she had
recommended sending the child into the country, where
it would be better cared for than it could be at home
with Katy constantly undoing all Mrs. Kirby had done,
waking it from sleep whenever the fancy took her, and in
short treating it much as she probably did her doll when
she was a little girl. With the child away there would
be nothing to prevent Katy's going out again and getting
back her good looks, which were somewhat impaired.
“Why, she looks older than you do,” Wilford said,
thinking thus to conciliate Helen, who quietly replied,
“There is not two years difference between us, and I
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have always been well, and kept regular hours until I
came here.”
Wilford's compliment had failed, and more annoyed
than before, he asked, not what Helen thought of the
arrangement, but if she would influence Katy to act and
think rationally upon it; “at least you will not make it
worse,” he said, and this time there was something deferential
and pleading in his manner.
Helen knew the matter was fixed,—that neither Katy's
tears nor entreaties would avail to revoke the decision,
and so, though her whole soul rose in indignation against
a man who would deliberately send his nursing baby from
his roof because it was in his way, and was robbing his
bride's cheek of its girlish bloom, she answered composedly,
“I will do what I can, but I must confess it seems to
me an unnatural thing. I had supposed parents less
selfish than that.”
Wilford did not care what Helen had supposed, and
her opposition only made him more resolved. Still he
did not say so, and he tried to smile as he quitted the
table and remarked to her,
“I hope to find Katy reconciled when I come home.
I think I had better not go up to her again, so tell her I
send a good-bye kiss by you. I leave her case in your
hands.”
It was a far more difficult case than either he or Helen
imagined, and the latter started back in alarm from the
white face which greeted her view as she entered Katy's
room, and then with a moan hid itself in the pillow.
“Wilford thought he would not come up, but he sent
a kiss by me,” Helen said, softly touching the bright, disordered
hair, all she could see of her sister.
“It does not matter,” Katy gasped. “Kisses cannot
help me if they take baby away. Did he tell you?” and
she turned now partly towards Helen, who nodded affirmatively,
while Katy continued, “Had he taken a knife
and cut a cruel gash it would not have hurt me half so
badly. I could bear that, but my baby—oh, Helen, do
you think they will take her away?”
She was looking straight at Helen, who shivered as she
met an expression so unlike Katy, and so like to that a
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hunted deer might wear if its offspring were in danger.
“Say, do you think they will?” she continued, shedding
back with her thin hand the mass of tangled curls
which had fallen about her eyes.
“Whom do you mean by they?” Helen asked, coming
near to her, and sitting down upon the bed.
There was a resentful gleam in the blue eyes usually
so gentle, as Katy answered,
“Whom do I mean? His folks, of course! They have
been the instigators of every sorrow I have known since
I left Silverton. Oh, Helen! never, never marry anybody
who has folks, if you wish to be happy.”
Helen could not repress a smile, though she pitied her
sister, who continued,
“I don't mean father Cameron, nor Bell, for I believe
they love me. Father does, I know, and Bell has helped
me so often; but Mrs. Cameron and Juno, oh, Helen,
you will never know what they have been to me.”
Since Helen came to New York there had been so
much else to talk about that Katy had said comparatively
little of the Camerons. Now, however, there was no
holding back on Katy's part, and beginning with the first
night of her arrival in New York she told what is already
known to the reader, exonerating Wilford in word, but
dealing out full justice to his mother and Juno, the former
of whom controlled him so completely.
“I tried so hard to love her,” Katy said, “and if she
had given me ever so little in return I would have been
satisfied; but she never did—that is, when I hungered
for it most, missing you at home, and the loving care
which sheltered me in childhood. After the world took
me into favor she began to caress me, but I was wicked
enough to think it all came of selfishness. I know I am
hard and bad, for when I was sick Mrs. Cameron was
really very kind, and I began to like her; but if she takes
baby away I shall surely die.”
“Where is baby to be sent?” Helen asked, and Katy
answered,
“Up the river, to a house which Father Cameron
owns, and which is kept by a farmer's family. I can't
trust Kirby. I do not like her. She keeps baby asleep
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too long, and acts so cross if I try to wake her, or hint that
she looks unnatural. I cannot give baby to her care, with
no one to look after her, though Wilford says I must.”
Katy had never offered so violent opposition to any
plan as she did now to that of sending her child away.
“I can't, I can't,” she repeated constantly, and Mrs.
Cameron's call, made that afternoon with a view to reconcile
the matter, only made it worse, so that Wilford,
on his return at night, felt a pang of self-reproach as he
saw the drooping figure holding his child upon its lap
and singing its lullaby in a plaintive voice, which told
how sore was its heart.
Wilford did not mean to be either a savage or a brute.
On the contrary, he had made himself believe that he
was acting only for the good of both mother and child;
but the sight of Katy touched him, and he might have
given up the contest had not Helen unfortunately taken
up the cudgels in Katy's defence, neglecting to conceal
the weapons, and so defeating her purpose. It was at
the dinner from which Katy was absent that she ventured
to speak, not asking that the plan be given up, but
speaking of it as an unnatural one, which seemed to her
not only useless but cruel.
Wilford did not tell her that her opinion was not desired,
but his manner implied as much, and Helen felt
the angry blood prickling through her veins as she listened
to his reply, that it was neither unnatural nor
cruel; that many people did it, and his would not be an
isolated case.
“Then if it must be,” Helen said, “pray let it go to
Silverton, and I will be its nurse. Katy will not object
to that.”
In a very ironical tone Wilford thanked her for her
offer, which he begged leave to decline, intimating a preference
for settling his own matters according to his own
ideas. Helen knew that further argument was useless,
and wished herself at home, where there were no wills
like this, which, ignoring Katy's tears and Katy's pleading
face, would not retract one iota, or even stoop to reason
with the suffering mother, except to reiterate, “It
is only for your good, and every one with common sense
will say so.”
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Next morning Helen was surprised at Katy's proposition
to drive round to Fourth street, and call on Marian.
“I have a strong presentiment that she can do me
good,” Katy said.
“Shall you tell her?” Helen asked in some surprise;
and Katy replied, “Perhaps I may, I'll see.”
An hour later, and Katy, up in Marian's room, sat
listening intently while Marian spoke of a letter received
a few days since from an old friend who had worked
with her at Madam —'s, and to whom she had been
strongly attached, keeping up a correspondence with her
after her marriage and removal to New London, in Connecticut,
and whose little child had borne Marian's
name. That child, born two months before Katy's, was
dead, and the mother, finding her home so desolate, had
written, beseeching Marian to come to her for the remainder
of the winter.
There was an eager look in Katy's face, and her eyes
danced with the new idea which had suddenly taken
possession of her. She could not trust baby with Kirby up
the river, but she could trust her in New London with
Mrs. Hubbell if Marian was there, and grasping the latter's
arm she exclaimed, “Is Mrs. Hubbell poor? Would
she do something for money, a great deal of money, I
mean?”
In a few moments Marian had heard Katy's trouble,
and Katy's wish that Mrs. Hubbell should take her child
in place of the little one dead. “Perhaps she would not
harbor the thought for a moment, but she misses her own
so much, it made me think she might take mine. Write
to her, Marian,—write to-day,—now, before I go,” Katy
continued, clasping Marian's hand, with an expression
which, more than aught else, won Marian Hazleton's consent
to a plan which seemed so strange.
“Yes, I will write,” she answered; “I will tell Amelia
what you desire.”
“But, Marian, you too must go, if baby does—I'll trust
baby with you. Say, Marian, will you go with my darling?”
It was hard to refuse, with those great, wistful, pleading
eyes, looking so earnestly into hers; but Marian must
have time to consider. She had thought of going to New
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London to open a shop, and if she did she should board
with Mrs. Hubbell, and so be with the child. She would
decide when the answer came to the letter.
This was all the encouragement she would give; but it
was enough to change the whole nature of Katy's feelings,
and her face looked bright and cheerful as she tripped
down the stairway, talking to Helen of what seemed to
both like a direct interposition of Providence, and what
she was sure would please Wilford quite as well as the
farm-house up the river.
“Surely he will yield to me in this,” she said. Nor
was she wrong; for glad of an opportunity to make some
concessions, and still in the main have his own way, Wilford
raised no objection to the plan as communicated to
him by Katy, when, at an earlier hour than usual, he
came home to dinner, and with the harmony of his household
once more restored, felt himself a model husband,
as he listened to Katy's plan of sending baby to New
London. On the whole, it might be better even than the
farm-house up the river, he thought, for it was further
away, and Katy could not be tiring herself with driving
out every few days, and keeping herself constantly uneasy
and excited. The distance between New York and New
London was the best feature of the whole; and he wondered
Katy had not thought of it as an objection. But
she had not, and but for the pain when she remembered
the coming separation, she would have been very happy
that evening, listening with Wilford and Helen to a
new opera brought out for the first time in New York.
Very differently from this was Marian's evening passed,
and on her face there was a look such as Katy's had
never worn, as she asked for guidance to choose the right,
to lay all self aside, and if it were her duty, to care for the
child she had never seen, but whose birth had stirred
the pulsations of her heart and made the old wound
bleed and throb with bitter anguish. And as she prayed
there crept into her face a look which told that self was
sacrificed at last, and Katy Cameron was safe with her.
Mrs Hubbell was willing—aye, more than that—was
glad to take the child, and the generous remuneration
offered would make them so comfortable in their little
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cottage, she wrote to Marian, who hastened to confer by
note with Katy, adding in a postscript, “Is it still your
wish that I should go? If so, I am at your disposal.”
It was Katy's wish, and she replied at once, going next
to the nursery to talk with Mrs. Kirby. Dark were the
frowns and dire the displeasure of that lady when told
that instead of going up the river, as she had hoped, she
was free to return to the “genteel and highly respectable
home on Bond Street,” where Mrs. Cameron had found
her.
“Wait till the Madam comes and then we'll see,” she
thought, referring to Mrs. Cameron, and feeling delighted,
when that very day she heard that lady's voice in the
parlor.
But Mrs. Cameron, though a little anxious with regard
to both Mrs. Hubbell's and Marian's antecedents, saw
that Wilford was in favor of New London and so voted
accordingly, only asking that she might write to New
London with regard to Mrs. Hubbell and her fitness to
take charge of a child in whose veins Cameron blood was
flowing. To this Katy assented, and as the answer returned
to Mrs. Cameron's letter was altogether favorable,
it was decided that Mrs. Hubbell should come to the city
at once for her little charge.
In a week's time she arrived, seeming everything Katy
could ask for, and as Mrs. Cameron, too, approved her
heartily as a modest, well spoken young woman, who
knew her place, it was arranged that she should return
home with her little charge on Saturday, thus giving
Katy the benefit of Sunday in which “to get over it
and recover her usual spirits,” Mrs. Cameron said.
The fact that Marian was going to New London within
a week after baby went, reconciled Katy to the plan, making
her even cheerful during the last day of baby's stay
at home. But as the daylight waned and the night came
on, a shadow began to steal across her face, and her
step was slower as she went up the stairs to the nursery,
while only herself that night could disrobe the little
creature and hush it into sleep.
“Tis the last time, you know,” she said to Kirby, who
went out, leaving the young mother and child alone.
Mournfully sad and sweet was the lullaby Katy sang,
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and Helen who, in the hall, was listening to the low, sad
moaning,—half prayer, half benediction,—likened it to a
farewell between the living and dead. Half an hour later,
when she glanced into the room, lighted only by the moonbeams,
baby was sleeping in her crib, whilst Katy knelt
beside, her face buried in her hands, and her form quivering
with the sobs she tried to smother as she softly
prayed that her darling might come back again; that
God would keep the little child and forgive the erring
mother who had sinned so deeply since the time she
used to pray in her home among the hills of Massachusetts.
She was very white next morning, and to Helen
she seemed to be expanding into something more womanly,
more mature, as she disciplined herself to bear the
pain welling up so constantly from her heart, and at last
overflowing in a flood of tears when Mrs. Hubbell was
announced as in the parlor below waiting for her charge.
It was Katy who made her baby ready, trusting her to
no one else, and repelling with a kind of fierce decision
all offers of assistance made either by Helen, Mrs. Cameron,
Bell, or the nurse, who were present, while Katy's
hands drew on the little bright, soft socks of wool, tied
the hood of satin and lace, and fastened the scarlet
cloak, her tears falling fast as she met the loving, knowing
look the baby was just learning to give her, half
smiling, half cooing, as she bent her face down to it.
“Please all of you go out,” she said, when baby was
ready—“Wilford and all. I would rather be alone.”
They granted her request, but Wilford stood beside
the open door, listening while the mother bade farewell
to her baby.
“Darling,” she murmured, “what will poor Katy do
when you are gone, or what will comfort her as you
have done? Precious baby, my heart is breaking to
give you up; but will the Father in Heaven, who knows
how much you are to me, keep you from harm and bring
you back again? I'd give the world to keep you, but I
cannot do it, for Wilford says that you must go, and
Wilford is your father.”
At that moment Wilford Cameron would have given
half his fortune to have kept his child for Katy's sake,
but it was now too late; the carriage was at the door,
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and Mrs. Hubbell was waiting in the hall for the little
procession filing down the stairs. Mrs. Cameron and
Bell, Wilford and Katy, who carried the baby herself,
her face bent over it and her tears still dropping like
rain. But it was Wilford who took the baby to the carriage,
going with it to the train and seeing Mrs. Hubbell
off; then, on his way back he drove round to his own
house which even to him seemed lonely, with all the
paraphernalia of babyhood removed. Still, now that
the worst was over, he rather enjoyed it, for Katy was
free from care; there was nothing to hinder her gratifying
his every wish, and with his spirits greatly enlivened
as he reflected how satisfactory everything had
been managed at the last, he proposed taking both
Helen and Katy to the theatre that night. But Katy
answered “No, Wilford, not to-night; it seems too much
like baby's funeral. I'll go next week, but not to-night.”
So Katy had her way, and among the worshipers
who next day knelt in Grace Church with words of
prayer upon their lips, there was not one more in earnest
than she whose only theme was, “My child, my darling
child.”
She did not get over it by Monday, as Mrs. Cameron
had predicted. She did not get over it at all, though
she went without a word where Wilford willed that she
should go, and was ere long a belle again, but nothing
had power to draw one look from her blue eyes, the
look which many observed, and which Helen knew
sprang from the mother love, hungering for its child.
Only once before had Helen seen a look like this, and
that had come to Morris's face on the sad night when
she said to him, “It might have been.” It had been
there ever since, and Helen felt that by the pangs with
which that look was born he was a better man, just as
Katy was growing better for that hunger in her heart.
God was taking his own way to purify them both, and
Helen watched intently, wondering what the end would
be.
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CHAPTER XXV. AUNT BETSY GOES ON A JOURNEY.
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JUST through the woods, where Uncle Ephraim
was wont to exercise old Whitey, was a narrow
strip of land, extending from the highway to the
pond, and fertile in nothing except the huckleberry
bushes, and the rocky ledges over which a few
sheep roamed, seeking for the short grass and stunted
herbs, which gave them a meagre sustenance. As a
whole it was comparatively valueless, but to Aunt Betsy
Barlow it was of great importance, as it was—her property—
the land on which she paid taxes willingly—the
real estate, the deed of which was lying undisturbed in
her hair trunk, where it had lain for years. Several dispositions
the good old lady had mentally made of this
property, sometimes dividing it equally between Helen
and Katy, sometimes willing it all to the former, and
again, when she thought of Mark Ray, leaving the interest
of it to some missionary society in which she was interested.
How then was the poor woman amazed and confounded
when suddenly there appeared a claimant to
her property; not the whole, but a part, and that part
taking in the big sweet apple-tree and the very best of
the berry bushes, leaving her nothing but rocks and
bogs, a pucker cherry tree, a patch of tansy, and one
small tree, whose gnarly apples were not fit, she said,
to feed the pigs.
Of course she was indignant, and all the more so because
the claimant was prepared to prove that the line
fence was not where it should be, but ran into his own
dominions for the width of two or three rods, a fact he
had just discovered by looking over a bundle of deeds,
in which the boundaries of his own farm were clearly
defined.
In her distress Aunt Betsy's first thoughts were
turned to Wilford as the man who could redress her
wrongs if any one, and a long letter was written to him
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in which her grievances were told in detail and his advice
solicited. Commencing with “My dear Wilford,” closing
with “Your respected ant,” sealed with a wafer,
stamped with her thimble, and directed bottom side up,
it nevertheless found its way to No. — Broadway, and
into Wilford's hands. But with a frown and pish of contempt
he tossed it into the grate, and vain were all
Aunt Betsy's inquiries as to whether there was any letter
for her when Uncle Ephraim came home from the
office. Letters there were from Helen, and sometimes
one from Katy, but none from Wilford, and her days
were passed in great perplexity and distress, until
another idea took possession of her mind. She would
go to New York herself! She had never traveled over
half a dozen miles in the cars, it was true, but it was
time she had, and now that she had a new bonnet and
shawl, she could go to York as well as not!
Wholly useless were the expostulations of the family,
for she would not listen to them, nor believe that she
would not be welcome at that house on Madison Square,
to which Mrs. Lennox had never been invited since Katy
was fairly settled in it. Much at first had been said of
her coming, and of the room she was to occupy; but all
that had ceased, and in the mother's heart there had
been a painful doubt as to the reason of the silence, until
Helen's letters enlightened her, telling her it was Wilford
who had built so high a wall between Katy and her
friends.
Far better than she used, did Mrs. Lennox understand
her son-in-law, and she shrank in horror from suffering
her aunt to go where she would be so serious an annoyance,
frankly telling her the reason for her objections,
and asking if she wished to mortify the girls.
At this Aunt Betsy took umbrage at once.
“She'd like to know what there was about her to
mortify anybody? Wasn't her black silk dress made
long and full, and the old pongee fixed into a Balmoral,
and hadn't she a bran new cap with purple ribbon, and
couldn't she travel in her delaine, and didn't she wear
hoops always now, except at cleanin' house times? Didn't
she nuss both the girls, especially Catherine, carrying her
in her arms one whole night when she had the
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cankerrash, and everybody thought she'd die? And when she
swallered that tin whistle didn't she spat her on the back
and swing her in the air till she came to and blew the
whistle clear across the room? Tell her that Catherine
would be ashamed! she knew better!”
Then, as a doubt began to cross her own mind as to
Wilford's readiness to entertain her at his house, she continued,
“At any rate, the Tubbses, who moved from Silverton
last fall, and who are living in such style on the Bowery,
wouldn't be ashamed, and I can stop with them at first,
till I see how the land lies. They have invited me to
come, both Miss Tubbs and 'Tilda, and they are nice
folks, who belong to the Orthodox Church. Tom is in
town now, and if I see him I shall talk with him about it,
even if I never go.”
Most devoutly did Mrs. Lennox and Aunt Hannah
hope that Tom would return to New York without honoring
the farm-house with a call; but unfortunately for
them he came that very afternoon, and instead of throwing
obstacles in Aunt Betsy's way, urged her warmly to
make the proposed visit.
“Mother would be so glad to see an old neighbor,”
the honest youth said, “for she did not know many folks
in the city. 'Till had made some flashy acquaintances,
of whom he did not think much, and they kept a few
boarders, but nobody had called, and mother was lonesome.
He wished Miss Barlow would come; she would
have no difficulty in finding them,” and on a bit of paper
he marked out the route of the Fourth Avenue cars, which
passed their door, and which Aunt Betsy would take after
arriving at the New Haven depot. “If he knew when
she was coming he would meet her,” he said, but Aunt
Betsy could not tell; she was not quite certain whether
she should go at all, she was so violently opposed.
Still she did not give it up entirely, and when, a few
days after Tom's return to New York, there came a pressing
invitation from the daughter Matilda, or Mattie, as
she signed herself, the fever again ran high, and this
time with but little hope of its abating.
“We shall be delighted, both mother and me,” Mattie
wrote. “I will show you all the lions of the city, and
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when you get tired of us you can go up to Mrs. Cameron's.
I know exactly where they live, and have seen her at the
opera in full dress, looking like a queen.”
Over the last part of this letter Aunt Betsy pondered
for some time. “That as good an Orthodox as Miss
Tubbs should let her girl go to the opera, passed her.
She had wondered at Helen's going, but then she was a
'Piscopal, and them 'Piscopals had queer notions about
usin' the world and abusin' it.” Still, as Helen did not
attend the theatre and did attend the opera, there must be
a difference between the two places, and into the old lady's
heart there slowly crept the thought that possible she,
might try the opera too, if 'Tilda Tubbs would go, and
promise never to tell the folks at Silverton.
This settled, Aunt Betsy began to devise the best
means of getting off with the least opposition. Both
Morris and her brother would be absent from town
during the next week, and she finally resolved to take
that opportunity for starting on her visit to New York,
wisely concluding to keep her own counsel until she was
quite ready. Accordingly, on the very day Morris and
the deacon left Silverton, she announced her intention
so quietly and decidedly that further opposition was useless,
and Mrs. Lennox did what she could to make her
aunt presentable. And Aunt Betsy did look very respectable,
in her dark delaine, with her hat and shawl,
both Morris's gift, and both in very good taste. As for
the black silk and the new cap, they were carefully
folded away, one in a box and the other in a satchel she
carried on her arm, and in one compartment of which
were sundry papers of fennel, caraway, and catnip, intended
for Katy's baby, and which could be sent to it
from New York. There was also a package of dried
plums and peaches for Katy herself, and a few cakes of
yeast of her own make, better than any they had in the
city! Thus equipped she one morning took her seat in
the Boston and New York train, which carried her
swiftly on towards Springfield.
“If anybody can find their way in New York it is
Betsy,” Aunt Hannah said to Mrs. Lennox, as the day
wore on and their thoughts went after the lone woman,
who with satchel, umbrella and cap-box, was felicitating
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in the luxury of a whole seat, and the near neighborhood
of a very nice young man, who listened with wellbred
interest while she told of her troubles concerning
the sheep-pasture, and how she was going to New York
to consult a first-rate lawyer.
Once she thought to tell who the lawyer was, and
perhaps enhance her own merits in the eyes of her auditor
by announcing herself as aunt to Mrs. Wilford Cameron,
of whom she had no doubt he had heard—nay,
more, whom he possibly knew, inasmuch as his home
was in New York, though he spent much of his time
at West Point, where he had been educated. But certain
disagreeable remembrances of Aunt Hannah's parting
injunction, “not to tell everybody in the cars that
she was Katy's aunt,” kept her silent on that point, and
so Lieutenant Bob Reynolds failed to be enlightened
with regard to the relationship existing between the
fastidious Wilford Cameron of Madison Square, and the
quaint old lady whose very first act on entering the car
had amused him vastly. At a glance he saw that she
was unused to traveling, and as the car was crowded, he
had kindly offered his seat near the door, taking the
side one under the window, and so close to her that she
gave him her cap-box to hold while she adjusted her
other bundles. This done and herself comfortably settled,
she was just remarking that she liked being close
to the door in case of a fire, when the conductor appeared,
extending his hand officially towards her as the first one
convenient. For an instant Aunt Betsy scanned him
closely, thinking she surely had never seen him before,
but as he seemed to claim acquaintance she could not
find it in her kind heart to ignore him altogether, and
so she grasped the offered hand, which she tried to shake,
saying apologetically,
“Pretty well, thank you, but you've got the better of
me, as I don't justly recall your name.”
Instantly the eyes of the young man under the window
met those of the conductor with a look which
changed the frown gathering in the face of the latter into
a comical smile as he withdrew his hand and shouted,
“Ticket, madam, your ticket!”
“For the land's sake, have I got to give that up so
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quick, when it's at the bottom of my satchel,” Aunt Betsy
replied, somewhat crest-fallen at her mistake, and fumbling
in her pocket for the key, which was finally produced,
and one by one the paper parcels of fennel, caraway,
and catnip, dried plums, peaches and yeast cakes,
were taken out, until at the very bottom, as she
had said, the ticket was found, the conductor waiing
patiently, and advising her, by way of avoiding
future trouble, to pin the card to her shawl, where it
could be seen.
“A right nice man,” was Aunt Betsy's mental comment,
but for a long time there was a red spot on her
cheeks as she felt that she had made herself ridiculous,
and hoped the girls would never hear of it.
The young man, helped to reassure her, and in telling
him her troubles she forgot her chagrin, feeling very
sorry that he was going on to Albany, and so down
the river to West Point. West Point was associated in
Aunt Betsy's mind with that handful of noble men who
within the walls of Sumter were then the centre of so
much interest, and at parting with her companion she
said to him.
“Young man, you are a soldier, I take it, from your
havin' been to school at West Point. Maybe you'll
never have to use your learning, but if you do, stick to
the old flag. Don't you go against that, and if an old
woman's prayers for your safety can do any good, be
sure you'll have mine.”
She raised her hand reverently, and Lieutenant Bob
felt a kind of awe steal over him as if he might one day
need that benediction, the first perhaps given in the
cause then so terribly agitating all hearts both North
and South.
“I'll remember what you say,” he answered, and then
as a new idea was presented he took out a card, and
writing a few lines upon it, bade her hand it to the conductor
just as she was getting into the city.
Without her glasses Aunt Betsy could not read, and
thinking it did not matter now, she thrust the card into
her pocket, and bidding her companion good-by, took
her seat in the other train. Lonely and a very little
home-sick she began to feel; for her new neighbors were
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not as willing to talk as Bob had been, and she finally
relapsed into silence, which resulted in a quiet sleep,
from which she awoke just as they were entering the
long, dark tunnel, which she would have likened to Purgatory,
had she believed in such a place.
“I didn't know we ran into cellars,” she said faintly;
but nobody heeded her, or cared for the anxious timid-looking
woman, who grew more and more anxious, until
suddenly remembering the card, she drew it from her
pocket, and the next time the conductor appeared
handed it to him, watching him while he read that
“Lieut. Robert Reynolds would consider it as a personal
favor if he would see the bearer safely into the Fourth
Avenue cars.”
Surely there is a Providence which watches over all;
and Lieutenant Reynolds's thoughtfulness was not a mere
chance, but the answer to the simple trust Aunt Betsy
had that God would take her safely to New York. The
conductor knew Lieutenant Bob, and attended as faithfully
to his wishes as if it had been a born princess instead
of Aunt Betsy Barlow whom he led to a street car,
ascertaining the number on the Bowery where she wished
to stop, and reporting to the conductor, who bowed in
acquiescence, after glancing at the woman, and knowing
intuitively that she was from the country. Could she
have divested herself wholly of the fear that the conductor
would forget to put her off at the right place,
Aunt Betsy would have enjoyed that ride very much;
and as it was, she looked around with interest, thinking
New York a mightily cluttered-up place, and wondering
if all the folks were in the streets; then, as a lady in
flaunting robes took a seat beside her, crowding her into
a narrow space, the good old dame thought to show that
she did not resent it, by an attempt at sociability, asking
if she knew “Miss Peter Tubbs, whose husband kept a
store on the Bowery?”
“I have not that honor,” was the haughty reply, the
lady drawing up her costly shawl and moving a little
away from her interlocutor, who continued, “I thought
like enough you might have seen 'Tilda, or Mattie as
she calls herself now. She is a right nice girl, and Tom
is a very forrard boy.”
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To this there was no reply; and as the lady soon left
the car, Aunt Betsy did not make another attempt at
conversation, except to ask once how far they were from
the Bowery, adding, as she received a civil answer, “You
don't know Mr. Peter Tubbs?”
That worthy man was evidently a stranger to the occupants
of that car, which stopped at last upon a crossing,
the conductor pointing back a few doors to the right,
and telling her that was her number.
“I should s'pose he might have driv right up, instead
of leaving me here,” she said, looking wistfully after the
retreating car. “Coats, and trowsers, and jackets! I
wonder if there is nothing else to be seen here,” she continued,
as her eye caught the long line of clothing so
conspicuously displayed in that part of the Bowery.
“'Taint no great shakes,” was the feeling struggling into
Aunt Betsy's mind, as with Tom's outline map in hand
she peered at the numbers of the doors, finding the right
one, and ringing the bell with a force which brought
Mattie at once to the rescue.
If Mattie was not glad to see her guest, she seemed to
be, which answered every purpose for the tired woman,
who followed her into the dark, narrow hall, and up the
narrow stairs, through a still darker hall, and into the
front parlor, which looked out upon the Bowery.
Mrs. Tubbs was glad to see Aunt Betsy. She did not
take kindly to city life, and the sight of a familiar face,
which brought the country with it, was very welcome to
her. Mattie, on the contrary, liked New York, and there
was scarcely a street where she had not been, with Tom
for a protector; while she was perfectly conversant with
all the respectable places of amusement—with their
different prices and different grades of patrons. She
knew where Wilford Cameron's office was, and also his
house, for she had walked by the latter many a time,
admiring the elegant curtains, and feasting her eyes upon
the glimpses of inside grandeur, which she occasionally
obtained as some one came out or went in. Once
she had seen Helen and Katy enter their carriage, which
the colored coachman drove away, but she had never
ventured to accost them. Katy would not have known
her if she had, for the family had come to Silverton while
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she was at Canandaigua, and as, after her return to Silverton,
until her marriage, Mattie had been in one of the
Lawrence factories, they had never met. With Helen,
however, she had a speaking acquaintance; but she had
never presumed upon it in New York, though to some of
her young friends she had told how she once sat in the
same pew with Mrs. Wilford Cameron's sister when she
went to the “Episcopal meeting,” and the consideration
which this fact procured for her from those who had
heard of Mrs. Wilford Cameron, of Madison Square,
awoke in her the ambition to know more of that lady,
and, if possible, gain an entrance to her dwelling. To
this end she favored Aunt Betsy's visit, hoping thus to
accomplish her object, for, of course, when Miss Barlow
went to Mrs. Cameron's, she was the proper person to
go with her and point the way. This was the secret of
Mattie's letter to Aunt Betsy, and the warmth with which
she welcomed her to that tenement on the Bowery, over
a clothing store, and so small that it is not strange Aunt
Betsy wondered where they all slept, never dreaming of
the many devices known to city housekeepers, who can
change a handsome parlor into a kitchen or sleeping
room, and vice versa, with little or no trouble. But she
found it out at last, lifting her hands in speechless
amazement, when, as the hour for retiring came, what
she had imagined the parlor bookcase was converted into
a comfortable bed, on which her first night in New
York was passed in comfort if not in perfect quiet.
The next day had been set apart by Mattie for showing
their guest the city, and possibly calling on Mrs.
Wilford; but the poor old lady, unused to travel and excitement,
was too tired to go out, and staid at home the
entire day, watching the crowds of people in the street,
and occasionally wishing herself back in the clean, bright
kitchen, where the windows looked out upon woods and
fields instead of that never-ceasing rush which made her
dizzy and faint. On the whole she was as nearly home-sick
as she well could be, and so when Mattie asked if
she would like to go out that evening, she caught eagerly
at the idea, as it involved a change, and again the
opera came before her mind, in spite of her attempts to
thrust it away.
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“Did 'Tilda know if Katy went to the opera now?
Did she s'pose she would be there to-night? Was it far
to the show? What was the price?—and was it a very
wicked place?”
To all these queries Mattie answered readily. She
presumed Katy would be there, as it was a new opera.
It was not so very far. Distance in the city was nothing,
and it was not a wicked place; but over the price
Mattie faltered. Tickets for Aunt Betsy, herself and
Tom, who of course must go with them, would cost more
than her father had to give. The theatre was preferable,
as that came within their means, and she suggested
Wallack's, but from that Aunt Betsy recoiled as from
Pandemonium itself.
“Catch her at a theatre—a deacon's sister, looked up
to for a sample, and who run once for Vice-President of
the Sewing Society in Silverton! It was too terrible to
think of.” But the opera seemed different. Helen went
there; it could not be very wrong, particularly as the
tickets were so high, and taking out her purse, Aunt
Betsy counted its contents carefully, holding the bills
thoughtfully for a moment, while she seemed to be balancing
between what she knew was safe and what she
feared might be wrong, at least in the eyes of Silverton.
“But Silverton will never know it,” the tempter
whispered, “and it is worth something to see the girls in
full dress.”
This last decided it, and Aunt Betsy generously offered
“to pay the fiddler, provided 'Tilda would never let it
get to Silverton, that Betsy Barlow was seen inside a
play-house!” To Mrs. Tubbs it seemed impossible that
Aunt Betsy could be in earnest, but when she found she
was, she put no impediments in her way; and so, conspicuous
among the crowd of transient visitors who that
night entered the Academy of Music was Aunt Betsy
Barlow, chaperoned by Miss Mattie Tubbs, and protected
by Tom, a shrewd, well-grown youth of seventeen, who
passed for some years older, and consequently was a
sufficient escort for the ladies under his charge. It was
not his first visit there, and he managed to procure a seat
which commanded a good view of several private boxes,
and among them that of Wilford Cameron. This
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Mattie pointed out to the excited woman gazing about her in
a maze of bewilderment, and half doubting her own
identity with the Betsy Barlow who, six weeks before, if
charged with such a sin as she was now committing,
would have exclaimed, “Is thy servant a dog, to do this
thing?” Yet here she was, a deacon's sister, a candidate
for the Vice-Presidency of the Silverton Sewing Society,
a woman who, for sixty-three years and-a-half, had led a
blameless life, frowning upon all worldly amusements
and setting herself for a burning light to others—here
she was in her black dress, her best shawl pinned across
her chest, and her bonnet tied in a square bow which
reached nearly to her ears. Here she was, in that huge
building, where the lights were so blinding, and the
crowd so great that she shut her eyes involuntarily, while
she tried to realize what she could be doing.
“I'm in for it now, anyhow, and if it is wrong may
the good Father forgive me,” she said softly to herself,
just as the orchestra struck up, thrilling her with its
ravishing strains, and making her forget all else in her
rapturous delight.
She was very fond of music, and listened eagerly,
beating time with both her feet, and making her bonnet
go up and down until the play commenced and she saw
stage dress and stage effect for the first time in her life.
This part she did not like; “they mumbled their words
so nobody could understand more than if they spoke a
heathenish tongue,” she thought, and she was beginning
to yawn when a nudge from Mattie and a whisper,
“There they come,” roused her from her stupor, and
looking up she saw both Helen and Katy entering their
box, and with them Mark Ray and Wilford Cameron.
Very rapidly Katy's eyes swept the house, running
over the sea of heads below, but failing to see the figure
which, half rising from its seat, stood gazing upon her,
the tears running like rain over the upturned face, and
the lips murmuring, “Darling Katy! blessed child!
She's thinner than when I see her last, but oh! so beantiful
and grand! Precious lambkin! It isn't wicked
now for me to be coming here, where I can see her face
again.”
It was all in vain that Mattie pulled her dress, bidding
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her sit down as people were staring at her. Aunt Betsy
did not hear, and if she had she would scarcely have
cared for those who, following her eyes, saw the beautiful
young ladies, behind whom Wilford and Mark were
standing, but never dreamed of associating them with the
“crazy thing” who sank back at last into her seat, keeping
her eyes still upon the box where Helen and Katy
sat, their heads uncovered, and their cloaks falling off
just enough to show the astonished woman that their
necks were uncovered too, while Helen's arms, raised
to adjust her glass, were discovered to be in the same
condition.
“Aint they splendid in full dress!” Mattie whispered,
while Aunt Betsy replied,
“Call that full dress? I'd sooner say it was no dress
at all! They'll catch their death of cold. What would
their mother say?”
Then, as the enormity of the act grew upon her, she
continued more to herself than to Mattie,
“I mistrusted Catherine, but that Helen should come to
this passes me.”
Still, as she became more accustomed to it, and glanced
at other full-dressed ladies, the first shock passed away,
and she could calmly contemplate Katy's dress, wondering
what it cost, and then letting her eyes pass on to
Helen, to whom Mark Ray seemed so lover-like that Aunt
Betsy remembered her impressions when he stopped at
Silverton, her heart swelling with pride as she thought
of both the girls making out so well.
“Who is that young man talking to Helen?” Mattie
asked, between the acts, and when told it “was Mr. Ray,
Wilford's partner,” she drew her breath eagerly, and
turned again to watch him, envying the young girl who
did not seem as much gratified with the attentions as
Mattie fancied she should be were she in Helen's
place.
How could she, with Juno Cameron just opposite,
watching her jealously, while Madam Cameron fanned
herself indignantly, refusing to look upon what she so
greatly disapproved.
But Mark continued his attentions until Helen wished
herself away, and though a good deal surprised, was
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not sorry when Wilford abruptly declared the opera a
bore, and suggested going home.
They would order an ice, he said, and have a much
pleasanter time in their own private parlor.
“Please not go; I like the play to-night,” Katy said;
but on Wilford's face there was that look which never
consulted Katy's wishes, and so the two ladies tied on
their cloaks, and just as the curtain rose in the last act,
left their box, while Aunt Betsy looked wistfully after
them, but did not suspect she was the cause of their
exit, and of Wilford's perturbation.
Running his eyes over the house below, they had
fallen upon the trio, Aunt Betsy, Mattie, and Tom, the
first of whom was at that moment partly standing, while
she adjusted her heavy shawl, which the heat of the
building had compelled her to unfasten.
There was a start, a rush of blood to the head and
face, and then he reflected how impossible it was that
she should be there, in New York, and at the opera, too.
The shawl arranged, Aunt Betsy took her seat and
turned her face fully toward him, while Wilford seized
Katy's glass and leveled it at her. He was not mistaken.
It was Aunt Betsy Barlow, and Wilford felt the perspiration
oozing out beneath his hair and about his lips, as
he remembered the letter he had burned, wishing now
that he had answered it, and so, perhaps, have kept her
from his door. For she was coming there, nay, possibly
had come, since his departure from home, and learning
his whereabouts had followed on to the Academy of
Music, leaving her baggage where he should stumble over
it on entering the hall.
Such was the fearful picture conjured up by Wilford's
imagination, as he stood watching poor Aunt Betsy, a
dark cloud on his brow and fierce anger at his heart, that
she should thus presume to worry and annoy him.
“If she spies us she will be finding her way up here;
there's no piece of effrontery of which that class is not
capable,” he thought, wondering next who the vulgarlooking
girl and gauche youth were who were with her.
“Country cousins, of whom I have never heard, no
doubt,” and he ground his teeth together as with his next
breath he suggested going home, carrying out his
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suggestion and hurrying both Helen and Katy to the carriage
as if some horrible dragon had been on their track.
There was no baggage in the hall; there had been no
woman there, and Wilford's fears for a time subsided,
but grew strong again about the time he knew the opera
was out, while the sound of wheels coming towards his
door was sufficient to make his heart stop beating, and
every hair prickle at its roots.
But Aunt Betsy did not come except in Wilford's
dreams, which she haunted the entire night, so that the
morning found him tired, moody and cross. That day
they entertained a select dinner party, and as this was
something in which Katy excelled, while Helen's presence,
instead of detracting from, would add greatly to the éclat
of the affair, Wilford had anticipated it with no small
degree of complacency. But now, alas, there was a
phantom at his side,—a skeleton of horror, wearing Aunt
Betsy's guise; and if it had been possible he would have
given the dinner up. But it was too late for that; the
guests were bidden, the arrangements made, and there
was nothing now for him but to abide the consequences.
“She shall at least stay in her room, if I have to lock
her in,” he thought, as he went down to his office without
kissing Katy or bidding her good-by.
Business that day had no interest for him, and in
a listless, absent way he sat watching the passers-by and
glancing at his door as if he expected the first assault to
be made there. Then, as the day wore on, and he felt
sure that what he so much dreaded had really come to
pass, that the baggage expected last night had certainly
arrived by this time and spread itself over his house, he
could endure the suspense no longer, and startled Mark
with the announcement that he was going home, and
should not return again that day.
“Going home, when Leavit is to call at three!” Mark
said, in much surprise, and feeling that it would be a
relief to unburden himself to some one, the story came
out that Wilford had seen Aunt Betsy at the opera, and
expected to find her at Madison Square.
“I wish I had answered her letter about that confounded
sheep pasture,” he said, “for I would rather
give a thousand dollars—yes, ten thousand—than have
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her with us to-day. I did not marry my wife's relations,”
he continued, excitedly, adding, as Mark looked
quickly up, “Of course I don't mean Helen. Neither do
I mean that doctor, for he is a gentleman. But this Barlow
woman—oh! Mark, I am all of a dripping sweat just
to think of it.”
He did not say what he intended doing, but with Mark
Ray's ringing laugh in his ears, passed into the street,
and hailing a stage was driven towards home, just as a
down town stage deposited on the walk in front of his
office “that Barlow woman” and Mattie Tubbs!
CHAPTER XXVI. AUNT BETSY CONSULTS A LAWYER.
AUNT Betsy did not rest well after her return from
the opera. Novelty and excitement always kept
her awake, and her mind was not wholly at ease
with regard to what she had done. Not that she really
felt she had committed a sin, except so far as the example
might be bad, but she feared the result, should it ever
reach the Orthodox church at Silverton.
“There's no telling what Deacon Bannister would do—
send a subpœna after me, for what I know,” she
thought, as she laid her tired head upon her pillow and
went off into a weary state, half way between sleep and
wakefulness, in which operas, play-actors, Katy in full
dress, Helen and Mark Ray, choruses, music by the orchestra,
to which she had been guilty of beating her
foot, Deacon Bannister, and the whole offended brotherhood,
with constable and subpœnas, were pretty equally
blended together.
But with the daylight her fears subsided, and at the
breakfast table she was hardly less enthusiastic over the
opera than Mattie herself, averring, however, that “once
would do her, and she had no wish to go again.”
The sight of Katy had awakened all the olden intense
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love she had felt for her darling, and she could not wait
much longer without seeing her.
“Hannah and Lucy, and amongst 'em, advised me not
to come,” she said to Mrs. Tubbs, “and they hinted that I
might not be wanted up there; but now I'm here I shall
go, if I don't stay more than an hour.”
“Of course I should,” Mattie answered, herself anxious
to stand beneath Wilford Cameron's roof, and see
Mrs. Wilford at home. “She don't look as proud as
Helen, and you are her aunt, her blood kin; why
shouldn't you go there if you like?”
“I shall—I am going,” Aunt Betsy replied, feeling that
to take Mattie with her was not quite the thing, and not
exactly knowing how to manage, for the girl must of
course pilot the way. “I'll risk it and trust to Providence,”
was her final decision, and so after an early lunch she
started out with Mattie as her escort, suggesting that
they visit Wilford's office first, and get that affair off her
mind.
At this point Aunt Betsy began to look upon herself as a
most hardened wretch, wondering at the depths of iniquity
to which she had fallen. The opera was the least of her
offences, for was she not harboring pride and contriving
how to be rid of 'Tilda Tubbs, as clever a girl as ever lived,
hoping that if she found Wilford he would see her home,
and so save 'Tilda the trouble? Play-houses, pride, vanity,
subterfuges and deceit—it was a long catalogue she would
have to confess to Deacon Bannister, if confess she did,
and with a groan the conscience-smitten woman followed
her conductor along the streets, and at last into the stage
which took them to Wilford's office.
Broadway was literally jammed that day, and the aid of
two policemen was required to extricate the bewildered
countrywoman from the mass of vehicles and horses' heads,
which took all her sense away. Trembling like a leaf
when Mattie explained that the “two nice men” who
had dragged her to the walk were police officers, and
thinking again of the subpœna, the frightened woman
who had escaped such peril, followed up the two flights
of stairs and into Wilford's office, where she sank breathless
into a chair, while Mark, not in the least surprised,
greeted her cordially, and very soon succeeded in getting
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her quiet, bowing so graciously to Mattie when introduced
that the poor girl dreamed of him for many a night,
and by day built castles of what might have been had she
been rich, instead of only 'Tilda Tubbs, whose home was
on the Bowery. Why need Aunt Betsy in her introduction
have mentioned that fact? Mattie thought, her cheeks
burning scarlet; or why need she afterwards speak of her
as 'Tilda, who was kind enough to come with her to the
office where she hoped to find Wilford? Poor Mattie, she
knew some things very well, but she had never yet conceived
of the immeasurable distance between herself and
Mark Ray, who cared but little whether her home were on
the Bowery or on Murray Hill, after the first sight which
told him what she was.
“Mr. Cameron has just left the office and will not return
to-day,” he said to Aunt Betsy, asking if he could
assist her in any way, and assuring her of his willingness
to do so.
Aunt Betsy could talk with him better than with Wilford,
and was about to give him the story of the sheep-pasture,
in detail, when, motioning to a side door, he
said, “Walk in here, please. You will not be liable to so
many interruptions.”
“Come, 'Tilda, it's no privacy,” Aunt Betsy said; but
'Tilda felt intuitively that she was not wanted, and rather
haughtily declined, amusing herself by the window, while
Aunt Betsy in the private office told her troubles to Mark
Ray; and received in return the advice to let the claimant
go to law if he chose; he probably would make nothing
by it; even if he did, she would not sustain a heavy loss,
according to her own statement of the value of the land.
“If I could keep the sweet apple-try, I wouldn't care,”
Aunt Betsy said, “for the rest ain't worth a law-suit;
though it's my property, and I have thought of willing it
to Helen, if she ever marries.”
Here was a temptation which Mark Ray could not
resist. Ever since Mrs. General Reynolds's party Helen's
manner had puzzled him; but her shyness only made
him more in love than ever, while the rumor of her engagement
with Dr. Morris tormented him continually.
Sometimes he believed it, and sometimes he did not,
wishing always that he knew for certain. Here then was
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a chance for confirming his fears or for putting them at
rest, and blessing 'Tilda Tubbs for declining to enter his
back office, he said in reply to Aunt Betsy's “If she ever
marries”—“And of course she will. She is engaged, I
believe?”
“Engaged! Who to? When? Strange she never
writ, nor Katy neither,” Aunt Betsy exclaimed, while
Mark, raised to an ecstatic state, replied, “I refer to Dr.
Grant. Haven't they been engaged for a long time past?”
“Why—no—indeed,” was the response, and Mark could
have hugged the good old lady, who continued in a confidential
tone, “I used to think they'd make a good match;
but I've gin that up, and I sometimes mistrust 'twas Katy
Morris wanted. Any how, he's mighty changed since she
was married, and he never speaks her name. I never
heard anybody say so, and maybe it's all a fancy, so you
won't mention it.”
“Certainly not,” Mark replied, drawing nearer to her,
and continuing in a low tone, “Isn't it possible that after
all Helen is engaged to her cousin, and you do not know
it?”
“No,” and Aunt Betsy grew very positive. “I am
sure she ain't, for only t'other day I said to Morris that
I wouldn't wonder if Helen and another chap had a hankerin'
for one another; and he said he wished it might be so,
for you—no, that other chap, I mean—would make a
splendid husband,” and Aunt Betsy turned very red at
the blunder, which made Mark Ray feel as if he walked
on air, with no obstacle whatever in his way.
Still he could not be satisfied without probing her a
little deeper, and so he said, “And that other chap?
Does he live in Silverton?”
Aunt Betsy's look was a sufficient answer; for the old
lady knew he was quizzing her, just as she felt that in
some way she had removed a stumbling-block from his
path. She had,—a very large stumbling-block, and in
the first flush of his joy and gratitude he could do most
anything. So when she spoke of going up to Katy's he
set himself industriously at work to prevent it for that
day at least. “They were to have a large dinner party,”
he said, “and both Mrs. Cameron and Miss Lennox
would be wholly occupied. Would it not be better to
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wait until to-morrow? Did she contemplate a long stay
in New York?”
“No, she might go back to-morrow,—certainly the day
after,” Aunt Betsy replied, her voice trembling at this
fresh impediment thrown in the way of her seeing Katy.
The quaver in her voice touched Mark's sympathy.
“She was old and simple-hearted. She was Helen's
aunt,” and this, more than aught else, helped him to a
decision. “She must be homesick in the Bowery; he
would take her to his mother's and keep her until the
morrow, and perhaps until she left for home; telling
Helen, of course, and then suffering her to act accordingly.”
This he proposed to his client; assuring her of his
mother's entire willingness to receive her, and urging so
many reasons why she should go there, instead of “up
to Katy's,” where they were in such confusion, that Aunt
Betsy was at last persuaded, and was soon riding up
town in a Twenty-third Street stage, with Mark Ray her
vis-à-vis, and Mattie at her right. Why Mattie was there
Mark could not conjecture; and perhaps she did not
know herself, unless it were that, disappointed in her call
on Mrs. Cameron, she vaguely hoped for some redress
by calling on Mrs. Banker. How then was she chagrined,
when, as the stage left them at a handsome brown-stone
front, near Fifth Avenue Hotel, Mark said to her,
as if she were not of course expected to go in, “Please
tell your mother that Miss Barlow is stopping with Mrs.
Banker to-day. Has she baggage at your house? If so,
we will send round for it at once. Your number, please?”
His manner was so off hand and yet so polite that
Mattie could neither resist him, nor be angry, though
there was a pang of disappointment at her heart as she
gave the required number, and then shook Aunt Betsy's
hand, whispering in a choked voice,
“You'll come to us again before you go home?”
With a good-bye to Mark, whose bow atoned for a great
deal, Mattie walked slowly away, leaving Mark greatly
relieved. Aunt Betsy was as much as he cared to have
on his hands at once, and as he led her up the steps, he
began to wonder more and more what his mother would
say to his bringing that stranger into her house, unbidden
and unsought.
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“I'll tell her the truth,” was his his rapid decision,
and assuming a manner which warned the servant who
answered his ring neither to be curious nor impertinent,
he conducted his charge into the parlor, and bringing her
a chair before the grate, went in quest of his mother, who
he found was out.
“Kindle a fire then in the front guest-chamber,” he
said, “and see that it is made comfortable as soon as
possible.”
The servant bowed in acquiescence, wondering who
had come, and feeling not a little surprised at the description
given by John of the woman he had let in to the
house, and who now in the parlor was looking around her
in astonishment and delight, condemning herself for the
feeling of homesickness with which she remembered the
Bowery, and contrasting her “cluttered quarters” there
with the elegance around her. “Was Katy's house as fine
as this?” she asked herself, feeling intuitively that such as
she might be out of place in it, just as she began to fear
she was out of her place here, bemoaning the fact that
she had forgotten her cap-box, with its contents, and so
could not remove her bonnet, as she had nothing with
which to cover her gray head.
“What shall I do?” she was asking herself, when Mark
appeared, explaining that his mother was absent, but
would be at home in a short time.
“Your room will soon be ready,” he continued, “and
meantime you might lay aside your wrappings here if
you find them too warm.”
There was something about Mark Ray which inspired
confidence, and in her extremity Aunt Betsy gasped, “I
can't take off my bunnet till I get my caps, down to Mr.
Tubbses. Oh, what a trouble I be.”
Not exactly comprehending the nature of the difficulty,
Mark suggested that she go without a cap until he could
send for them; but Aunt Betsy's assertion that “she was
grayer than a rat,” enlightened him with regard to her
dilemma, and full permission was given for her “to sit in
her bonnet” until such time as a messenger could go to
the Bowery and back. In this condition she was better
in her own room, and as it was in readiness, Mark conducted
her to it, the stern gravity of his face putting down
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the laugh which sprang to the waiting maid's eyes at the
old lady's ejaculations of surprise that anything could be
so fine as the house where she so unexpectedly found
herself a guest.
“She is unaccustomed to the city, but a particular
friend of mine; so see that you treat her with respect,”
was all the explanation he vouchsafed to the curious girl.
But that was enough. A friend of Mr. Ray's must be
somebody, even if she sat with two bonnets on instead of
one, and appeared ten times more rustic than Aunt Betsy,
who breathed freer when she found herself alone up
stairs, and knew her baggage would soon be there.
In some little trepidation Mark paced up and down the
parlor waiting for his mother, who came ere long, expressing
her surprise to find him there, and asking if anything
had happened that he seemed so agitated.
“Yes, I'm in a deuced scrape,” he answered, coming
up to her with the saucy, winning smile she could never
resist, and continuing, “To begin at the foundation, you
know how much I am in love with Helen Lennox?”
“No, I don't,” was the reply, as Mrs. Banker removed
her fur with the most provoking coolness. “How should
I know when you have never told me?”
“Haven't you eyes? Can't you see? Don't you like
her yourself?”
“Yes, very much.”
“And are you willing she should be your daughter?”
Mark had his arm around his mother's neck, and bending
his face to hers, kissed her playfully as he asked her
the last question.
“Say, mother, are you willing I should marry Helen
Lennox?”
There was a struggle in Mrs. Banker's heart, and for a
moment she felt jealous of the girl who she had guessed
was dearer to her son than ever his mother could be
again; but she was a sensible woman. She knew that it
was natural for another and a stronger love to come
between her and her boy. She liked Helen Lennox.
She was willing to take her as a daughter, and she said
so at last, and listened half amazed and half amused to
the story which had in it so much of Aunt Betsy Barlow,
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at that very moment an occupant of their best guest-chamber,
waiting for her cap from the Bowery.
“Perhaps it was wrong to bring her home,” he added,
“but I did it to spare Helen. I knew what a savage Wilford
would be if he found her there. Say, mother, was I
wrong?”
He was not often wrong in his mother's estimation, and
certainly he was not now, when he kissed her so often,
begging her to say he had done right.
“Certainly he had. Mrs. Banker was very glad to find
him so thoughtful; few young men would do as much,”
she said, and from feeling a little doubtful, Mark came to
look upon himself as a very nice young man, who had
done a most unselfish act, for of course he had not been
influenced by any desire to keep Aunt Betsy from the
people who would be present at the dinner, neither had
Helen been at all mixed up in the affair.
It was all himself, and he began to whistle “Annie
Laurie” very complacently, thinking the while what a
clever fellow he was, and meditating other generous acts
towards the old lady overhead, who was standing by the
window, and wondering what the huge building could be
gleaming so white in the fading sunlight.
“Looks as if it was made of stone cheena,” she thought,
just as Mrs. Banker appeared, her kind, friendly manner
making Aunt Betsy feel wholly at ease, as she answered
the lady's questions or volunteered remarks of her own.
Mrs. Banker had lived in the country, and had seen
just such women as Aunt Betsy Barlow, understanding
her intrinsic worth, and knowing how Helen Lennox,
though her niece, could still be refined and cultivated.
She could also understand how one educated as Wilford
Cameron had been, would shrink from coming in contact
with her, and possibly be rude if she thrust herself upon
him. Mark did well to bring her here, she thought, as
she left the room to order the tea which the tired woman
so much needed. The satchel, umbrella, and cap-box,
with a note from Mattie, had by this time arrived, and in
her Sunday cap, with the purple bows, Aunt Betsy felt
better, and enjoyed the tempting little supper, served on
silver and Sevres china, the attendant waiting in the hall
instead of in her room, where her presence might
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embarrass one unaccustomed to such usages. They were very
kind, and had Mark been her own son he could not have
been more deferential than he appeared when just before
starting for the dinner he went up to see her, asking
what message he should take to Helen. Mrs. Banker,
too, came in, her dress eliciting many compliments from
her guest, who ventured to ask the price of the diamond
pin which fastened the point lace collar. Five hundred dollars
seemed an enormous sum, but Aunt Betsy was learning
not to say all she thought, and merely remarked that
Katy had some diamonds too, which she presumed cost
full as much as that.
“She should do very well alone,” she said; “she could
read her Bible, and if she got too tired, go to bed,” and
with a good-bye she sent them away, after saying to Mrs.
Banker, “Maybe you ain't the kissin' kind, but if you be,
I wish you would kiss Katy once for me.”
There was a merry twinkle in Mark's eyes as he asked,
“And Helen too?”
“I meant your marm, not you,” Aunt Betsy answered;
while Mrs. Banker raised her hand to her mischievous
son, who ran lightly down the stairs, carrying a happier
heart than he had known since Helen Lennox first came
to New York, and he met her at the depot.
CHAPTER XXVII. THE DINNER PARTY.
IT was a very select party which Wilford Cameron
entertained that evening; and as the carriages
rolled to his door and deposited the guests, the
cloud which had been lifting ever since he came
home and found “no Barlow woman” there, disappeared,
leaving him the blandest, most urbane of hosts, pleased
with everybody—himself, his guests, his sister-in-law,
and his wife, who had never looked better than she did
to-night, in pearls and light blue silk, which harmonized
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so perfectly with her wax-like complexion. Aunt Betsy's
proximity was wholly unsuspected, both by her and
Helen, who was very handsome, in crimson and black,
with lilies in her hair. Nothing could please Mark better
than his seat at table, where he could look into her
eyes, which dropped so shyly whenever they met his gaze.
Helen was beginning to doubt the story of his engagement
with Juno. Certainly she could not mistake the
nature of the attentions he paid to her, especially to-night,
when he hovered continually near her, totally
ignoring Juno's presence, and conscious apparently of
only one form, one face, and that the face and form of
Helen Lennox.
There was another, too, who felt the influence of
Helen's beauty, and that was Lieutenant Bob, who, after
dinner, attached himself to her side, while around them
gathered quite a group, all listening with peals of laughter
as Bob related his adventure of two days before,
with “the most rustic and charming old lady it was ever
his fortune to meet.” Told by Bob the story lost nothing
of its freshness; for every particular, except indeed the
kindness he had shown her, was related, even to the sheep-pasture,
about which she was going to New York to consult
a lawyer.
“I thought once of referring her to you, Mr. Cameron,”
Bob said; “but couldn't find it in my heart to quiz her,
she was so wholly unsuspicious. You have not seen her,
have you?”
“No,” came faintly from the lips which tried to smile;
for Wilford knew who was the heroine of that story; wondering
more and more where she was, and feeling a sensation
of uneasiness, as he thought, “Can any accident
have befallen her?”
It was hardly probable; but Wilford felt very uncomfortable
after hearing the story, which had brought a
pang of doubt and fear to another mind than his. From
the very first Helen feared that Aunt Betsy was the “odd
woman” who had gotten upon the train at some station
which Bob could not remember; while, as the story progressed,
she was sure of it, for she had heard of the
sheep-pasture trouble, and of Aunt Betsy's projected visit
to New York, privately writing to her mother not to
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suffer it, as Wilford would be greatly vexed. “Yes, it must
be Aunt Betsy,” she thought, and she turned so white
that Mark, who was watching both her and Wilford, came
as soon as possible to her side, and adroitly separating
her from the group around, said softly, “You look tired,
Miss Lennox. Come with me a moment. I have something
to tell you.”
Alone with her in the hall, he continued, “I have the
sequel of Bob Reynolds's story. That woman—”
“Was Aunt Betsy,” Helen gasped. “But where is she
now? That was two days ago. Tell me if you know.
Mr. Ray, you do know,” and in an agony of fear lest
something dreadful had happened, she laid her hand on
Mark's, beseeching him to tell her if he knew where Aunt
Betsy was.
It was worth torturing her for a moment to see the
pleading look in her eyes, and feel the soft touch of the
hand which he took between both his own, holding it
there while he answered her: “Aunt Betsy is at my
house; kidnapped by me for safe keeping, until I could
consult with you. Was that right?” he asked, as a flush
came to Helen's cheek, and an expression to her eye
which told that his meaning was understood.
“Is she there willingly? How did it happen?” was
Helen's reply, her hand still in those of Mark, who, thus
circumstanced, grew very warm and eloquent with the
sequel to Bob's story, making it as long as possible, telling
what he knew, and also what he had done.
He had not implicated Wilford in any way; but Helen
read it all, saying more to herself than him, “And she
was at the opera. Wilford must have seen her, and that
is why he left so suddenly, and why he has appeared so
absent and nervous to-day, as if expecting something.
Excuse me,” she suddenly added, drawing her hand away
and stepping back a little, “I forgot that I was talking
as if you knew.”
“I do know more than you suppose—that is, I know
human nature—and I know Will better than I did that
morning when I first met you,” Mark said, glancing at
the freed hand he wished so much to take again.
But Helen kept her hands to herself, and answered
him,
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“You did right under the circumstances. It would
have been unpleasant for us all had she happened here-to-night.
I thank you, Mr. Ray—you and your mother,
too—more than I can express. I will see her early to-morrow
morning. Tell her so, please, and again I thank
you.”
There were tears in Helen's soft brown eyes, and they
glittered like diamonds as she looked even more than
spoke her thanks to the young man, who, for another
look like that, would have driven Aunt Betsy amid the
gayest crowd that ever frequented the Park, and sworn
she was his blood relation! A few words from Mrs.
Banker confirmed what Mark had said, and it was not
strange if that night Miss Lennox, usually so entertaining,
was a little absent, for her thoughts were up in that
chamber on Twenty-third Street, where Aunt Betsy sat
alone, but not lonely, for her mind was very busy with all
she had been through since leaving Silverton, while something
kept suggesting to her that it would have been
wiser and better to have staid at home than to have
ventured where she was so sadly out of place. This last
came gradually to Aunt Betsy as she thought the matter
over, and remembered Wilford as he had appeared each
time he came to Silverton.
“I ain't like him; I ain't like this Miss Banker; I
ain't like anybody,” she whispered. “I'm nothin' but a
homely, old-fashioned woman, without larnin', without
nothin'. I might know I wasn't wanted,” and a rain of
tears fell over the wrinkled face as she uttered this tirade
against herself, standing before the long mirror, and
inspecting the image it gave back of a plain, unpolished
countrywoman, not much resembling Mrs. Banker, it
must be confessed, nor much resembling the gay young
ladies she had seen at the opera the previous night. “I
won't go near Katy,” she continued; “it would only
mortify her, and I don't want to make her trouble. The
poor thing's face looked as if she had it now, and I won't
add to it. I'll start for home to-morrow. There's Miss
Smith, in Springfield, will keep me over night, and Katy
shan't be bothered.”
When this decision was reached, Aunt Betsy felt a
great deal better, and taking the Bible from the table,
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she sat down again before the fire, opening, as by a
special Providence, to the chapter where the hewers of
wood and drawers of water are mentioned as being
necessary to mankind, each filling his appointed place.
“That's me—that's Betsy Barlow,” she whispered,
taking off her glasses to wipe away the moisture gathering
so fast upon them. Then resuming them, she continued,
“I'm a hewer of wood—a drawer of water. God
made me so, and shall the clay find fault with the potter,
for making it into a homely jug? No, indeed; and I was
a very foolish old jug to think of sticking myself in with
the china-ware. But I've larnt a lesson,” and the philosophic
old woman read on, feeling comforted to know
that though a vessel of the rudest make, a paltry jug, as
she called herself, the promises were still for her as much
as for the finer wares—aye, that there was more hope of
her entering at last where “the walls are all of precious
stones and the streets are paved with gold,” than of
those whose good things are given so abundantly during
their lifetime.
Assured, comforted, and encouraged, she fell asleep
at last, and when Mrs. Banker returned she found her
slumbering quietly in her chair, the Bible open on her
lap, and her finger upon the passage referring to the
hewers of wood and drawers of water, as if that was the
last thing read.
Next morning, at a comparatively early hour, Helen
stood ringing the bell of Mrs. Banker's house. She had
said to Katy that she was going out, and could not tell
just when she might return, and as Katy never questioned
her acts, while Wilford was too intent upon his
own miserable thoughts as to “where Aunt Betsy could
be, or what had befallen her,” to heed any one else, no
inquiries were made, and no obstacles put in the way of
her going direct to Mrs. Banker's, where Mark met her
himself, holding her cold hand until he led her to the fire
and placed her in a chair. He knew she would rather
meet her aunt alone, and so when he heard her step in the
hall he left the room, holding the door for Aunt Betsy,
who wept like a little child at the sight of Helen, accusing
herself of being a fool, who ought to be shut up in
an insane asylum, but persisting in saying she was going
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home that very day without seeing Katy at all. “If she
was here I'd like it, but I shan't go there, for I know Wilford
don't want me.” Then she told Helen all she did not
already know of her trip to New York, her visit to the
opera, her staying with the Tubbses, and her meeting
with Mark, the best young chap she ever saw, not even
excepting Morris. “If he was my own son he couldn't
be kinder,” she added, “and I mistrust he hopes to be
my nephew. You can't do better; and, if he offers, take
him.”
Helen's cheeks were crimson as she waived this part of
the conversation, and wished aloud that she had come
around in the carriage, as she could thus have taken Aunt
Betsy over the city before the train would leave.
“Mark spoke of that when he heard I was going to-day,”
Aunt Betsy said; “I'll warrant you he'll attend to
it.”
Aunt Betsy was right, for when Mark and his mother
joined their guests, and learned that Aunt Betsy's intention
was unchanged, he suggested the ride, and offered
the use of their carriage. Helen did not decline the offer,
and ere a half hour had passed, Aunt Betsy, with her
satchel, umbrella, and cap-box, was comfortably adjusted
in Mrs. Banker's carriage with Helen beside her, while
Mark bade his coachman drive wherever Miss Lennox
wished to go, taking care to reach the train in time.
They were tearful thanks which Aunt Betsy gave to
her kind friends as she was driven away to the Bowery
to say good-bye, lest the Tubbses should “think her suddenly
stuck up.”
“Would you mind taking 'Tilda in? It would please
her mightily,” Aunt Betsy whispered, as they were alighting
in front of Mr. Peter Tubbs's; and as the result of
this suggestion, the carriage, when again it emerged into
Broadway, held Mattie Tubbs, prouder than she had been
in all her life before, while the gratified mother at home
felt amply repaid for all the trouble her visitor had made
her.
And Helen enjoyed it, too, finding Mattie a little insipid
and tiresome, but feeling happy in the consciousness that
she was making others happy. It was a long drive they
took, and Aunt Betsy saw so much that her brain grew
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giddy, and she was glad when they started for the depot,
taking Madison Square on the way, and passing Katy's
house.
“I dare say it's all grand and smart,” Aunt Betsy said,
as she leaned out to look at it, “but I feel best at hum,
where they are used to me.”
And her face did wear a brighter look, when finally
seated in the cars, than it had before since she left Silverton.
“You'll be home in April, and may-be Katy'll come
too,” she whispered as she kissed Helen good-bye, and
shook hands with Mattie Tubbs, charging her again never
to let the folks in Silverton know that “Betsy Barlow had
been seen at a play-house.”
Slowly the cars moved away, and Helen was driven
home, leaving Mattie alone in her glory as she rolled
down the Bowery, enjoying the eclat of her position, but
feeling a little chagrined at not meeting a single acquaintance
by whom to be envied and admired.
Katy did not ask where Helen had been, for she was
wholly absorbed in Marian Hazelton's letter, telling how
fast the baby improved, how pretty it was growing, and
how fond both she and Mrs. Hubbell were of it, loving it
almost as well as if it were their own.
“I know now it was best for it to go, but it was hard
at first,” Katy said, putting the letter away, and sighing
wearily as she missed the clasp of the little arms and
touch of the baby lips.
Several times Helen was tempted to tell her of Aunt
Betsy's visit, but decided finally not to do so, and Katy
never knew what it was which for many days made Wilford
so nervous and uneasy, starting at every sudden ring,
going often to the window, and looking out into the street
as if expecting some one, while he grew strangely anxious
for news from Silverton, asking when Katy had heard
from home, and why she did not write. One there was,
however, who knew, and who enjoyed watching Wilford,
and guessing just how his anxiety grew as day after day
went by; and she neither came nor was heard from in any
way, for Helen did not show the letter apprising her of
Aunt Betsy's safe arrival home, and so all in Wilford's
mind was vague conjecture.
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She had been in New York, as was proven by Bob Reynolds,
but where was she now, and who were those people
with her? Had they entrapped her into some snare,
and possibly murdered her? Such things were not of
rare occurrence, and Wilford actually grew thin with the
uncertainty which hung over the fate of one whom in his
present state of mind he would have warmly welcomed
to his fireside, had there been a dozen dinner parties
in progress. At last, as he sat one day in his office, with
the same worried look on his face, Mark, who had been
watching him, said,
“By the way, Will, how did that sheep pasture come
out, or didn't the client appear?”
“Mark,” and Wilford's voice was husky with emotion;
“you've stumbled upon the very thing which is tormenting
my life out of me. Aunt Betsy has never turned
up or been heard from since that night. For aught I
know she was murdered, or spirited away, and I am half
distracted. I'd give a thousand dollars to know what has
become of her.”
“Put down half that pile and I'll tell you,” was Mark's
nonchalant reply, while Wilford, seizing his shoulder, and
compelling him to look up, exclaimed,
“You know, then? Tell me—you do know. Where
is she?”
“Safe in Silverton, I presume,” was the reply, and
then Mark told his story, to which Wilford listened, half
incredulous, half indignant, and a good deal relieved.
“You are a splendid fellow, Mark, though I must say
you meddled, but I know you did not do it unselfishly.
Perhaps with Katy not won I might do the same. Yes,
on the whole, I thank you and Helen for saving me that
mortification. I feel like a new man, knowing the old
lady is safe at home, where I trust she will remain. And
that Tom, who called here yesterday, asking to be our
clerk, is the youth I saw at the opera. I thought his face
was familiar. Let him come, of course. In my gratitude
I feel like patronizing the entire Tubbs family.”
And so it was this flash of gratitude for a peril escaped
which procured for young Tom Tubbs the situation of
clerk in the office of Cameron & Ray, the application for
such situation having been urged by the ambitious
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Mattie, who felt her dignity considerably increased when she
could speak of brother Tom in company with Messrs.
Cameron and Ray.
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE SEVENTH REGIMENT.
DOES the reader remember the pleasant spring
days when the thunder of Fort Sumter's bombardment
came echoing up the Northern hills and
across the Western prairies, stopping for a moment
the pulses of the nation, but quickening them again with a
mighty power as from Maine to California man after man
arose to meet the misguided foe trailing our honored flag
in the dust? Nowhere, perhaps, was the excitement so
great or the feeling so strong as in New York, when the
Seventh Regiment was ordered to Washington, its members
never faltering or holding back, but with a nerving
of the will and a putting aside of self, preparing to do their
duty. Conspicuous among them was Mark Ray, who,
laughing at his mother's fears, kissed her livid cheek, and
then with a pang remembered Helen—wondering how she
would feel, and thinking the path to danger would be so
much easier if he knew that her prayers would go with
him, shielding him from harm and bringing him back
again to the sunshine of her presence.
And before he went Mark must know this for certain, and
he chided himself for having put it off so long. True she
had been sick and confined to her room for a long while
after Aunt Betsy's memorable visit; and when she was
able to go out, Lent had put a stop to her mingling in
festive scenes, so that he had seen but little of her, and
had never met her alone. But he would write that very
day. She knew, of course, that he was going. She
would say that he did well to go; and she would answer
yes to the question he would ask her. Mark felt sure of
that; but still the letter he wrote was eloquent with his
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pleadings for her love, while he confessed his own, and
asked that she would give him the right to think of her
as his affianced bride—to know she waited for his return,
and would crown it at last with the full fruition of her
priceless love.
“I meet a few of my particular friends at Mrs. Grandon's
to-night,” he added, in conclusion. “Can I hope
to see you there, taking your presence as a token that I
may speak and tell you in words what I have so poorly
written?”
This note he would not trust to the post, but deliver
himself, and thus avoid the possibility of a mistake, he said;
and half an hour later he rang the bell at No. —, asking
“if Miss Lennox was at home.” She was; and handing the
girl the note, Mark ran down the steps, while the servant
carried the missive to the library, where upon the table
lay other letters received that morning, and as yet unopened;
for Katy was very busy, and Helen was dressing
to go out with Juno Cameron, who had graciously asked
her to drive with her and look at a picture she had set
her heart on having.
Juno had not yet appeared; but Mark was scarcely
out of sight when she came in with the familiarity of a
sister, and entered the library to wait. Carelessly turning
the books upon the table, she stumbled upon Mark's
letter, which, through some defect in the envelope, had
become unsealed, and lay with its edge lifted so that to
peer at its contents was a very easy matter had she been
so disposed. But Juno, who knew the handwriting—
could not at first bring herself even to touch what was
intended for her rival. But as she gazed the longing
grew, until at last she took it in her hand, turning it to
the light, and tracing distinctly the words, “My dear
Helen,” while a storm of pain and passion swept over
her, mingled with a feeling of shame that she had let
herself down so far.
“It does not matter now,” the tempter whispered.
“You may as well read it and know the worst. Nobody
will suspect it,” and she was about to take the folded
letter from the envelope, intending to replace it after it
was read, when a rapid step warned her some one was
coming, and hastily thrusting the letter in her pocket,
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she dropped her veil to cover her confusion, and then
confronted Helen Lennox, ready for the drive, and unconscious
of the wrong which could not then be righted.
Juno did not mean to keep the letter, and all that
morning she was devising measures for making restitution,
thinking once to confess the whole, but shrinking
from that as more than she could do. As they were
driving home, they met Mark Ray; but Helen, who
chanced to be looking in an opposite direction, did not
see the earnest look of scrutiny he gave her, scarcely
heeding Juno, whose voice trembled as she spoke of him
to Helen and his intended departure. Helen observed
the tremor in her voice, and pitied the girl whose agitation
she fancied arose from the fact that her lover was
so soon to go where danger and possibly death was
waiting. In Helen's heart, too, there was a pang
whenever she remembered Mark, and what had so
recently passed between them, raising hopes, which now
were wholly blasted. For he was Juno's, she believed,
and the grief at his projected departure was the cause of
that young lady's softened and even humble demeanor,
as she insisted on Helen's stopping at her house for
lunch before going home.
To this Helen consented—Juno still revolving in her
mind how to return the letter, which grew more and more
a horror to her. It was in her pocket, she knew, for she
had felt it there when, after lunch, she went to her room
for a fresh handkerchief. She would accompany Helen
home,—would manage to slip into the library alone, and
put it partly under a book, so that it would appear to be
hidden, and thus account for its not having been seen
before. This seemed a very clever plan, and with her
spirits quite elated, Juno drove round with Helen, finding
no one in the parlor below, and felicitating herself
upon the fact that Helen left her alone while she run up
to Katy.
“Now is my time,” she thought, stealing noiselessly
into the library and feeling for the letter.
But it was not there, and no amount of search, no shaking
of handkerchiefs, or turning of pocket inside out
could avail to find it. The letter was lost, and in the
utmost consternation Juno returned to the parlor,
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appearing so abstracted as scarcely to be civil when Katy
came down to see her; asking if she was going that
night to Sybil Grandon's, and talking of the dreadful
war, which she hoped would not be a war after all.
Juno was too wretched to talk, and after a few moments
she started for home, hunting in her own room
and through the halls, but failing in her search, and
finally giving it up, with the consoling reflection that
were it found in the street, no suspicion could fasten
on her; and as fear of detection, rather than contrition
for the sin, had been the cause of her distress, she grew
comparatively calm, save when her conscience made
itself heard and admonished confession as the only reparation
which was now in her power. But Juno could
not confess, and all that day she was absent-minded and
silent, while her mother watched her closely, wondering
what connection, if any, there was between her burning
cheeks and the letter she had found upon the floor in
her daughter's room just after she had left it; the letter,
at whose contents she had glanced, shutting her lips
firmly together, as she saw that her plans had failed, and
finally putting the document away, where there was less
hope of its ever finding its rightful owner, than if it had
remained with Juno. Had Mrs. Cameron supposed that
Helen had already seen it, she would have returned it at
once; but of this she had her doubts, after learning that
“Miss Lennox did not go up stairs at all.” Juno, then,
must have been the delinquent; and the mother resolved
to keep the letter till some inquiry was made for it at
least.
And so Helen did not guess how anxiously the young
man was anticipating the interview at Sybil Grandon's,
scarcely doubting that she would be there, and fancying
just the expression of her eyes when they first met his.
Alas for Mark, alas for Helen, that both should be so
cruelly deceived. Had the latter known of the loving
words sent from the true heart which longed for some
word of hers to lighten the long march and beguile the
tedious days of absence, she would not have said to
Katy, when asked if she was going to Mrs. Grandon's,
“Oh, no; please don't urge me. I would so much rather
stay at home.”
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Katy would not insist, and so went alone with Wilford
to the entertainment, given to a few young men who
seemed as heroes then, when the full meaning of that
word had not been exemplified, as it has been since in
the life so cheerfully laid down, and the heart's blood
poured so freely, by the tens of thousands who have won
a martyr's and a hero's name. With a feeling of chill
despair, Mark listened while Katy explained to Mrs.
Grandon, that her sister had fully intended coming in
the morning, but had suddenly changed her mind and
begged to be excused.
“I am sorry, and so I am sure is Mr. Ray,” Sybil
said, turning lightly to Mark, whose white face froze
the gay laugh on her lips and made her try to shield
him from observation until he had time to recover himself
and appear as usual.
How Mark blessed Sybil Grandon for that thoughtful
kindness, and how wildly the blood throbbed through
his veins as he thought “She would not come. She
does not care. I have deceived myself in hoping that
she did, and now welcome war, welcome anything which
shall help me to forget.”
Mark was very wretched, and his wretchedness showed
itself upon his face, making more than one rally him for
what they termed fear, while they tried to reassure him
by saying that to the Seventh there could be no danger
after Baltimore was safely passed. This was more than
Mark could bear, and at an early hour he left the house,
bidding Katy good-bye in the hall, and telling her he
probably should not see her again, as he would not have
time to call.
“Not call to say good-bye to Helen,” Katy exclaimed.
“Helen will not care,” was Mark's reply, as he hurried
away into the darkness of the night, more welcome in
his present state of mind than the gay scene he had left.
And this was all Katy had to carry Helen, who had
expected to see Mark once more, to bless him as a sister
might bless a brother, speaking to him words of cheer
and bidding him go on to where duty led. But he was
not coming, and she only saw him from the carriage
window, as with proud step and head erect, he passed
with his regiment through the densely crowded streets,
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where the loud hurrahs of the multitude, which no man
could number, told how terribly in earnest the great city
was, and how its heart was with that gallant band, their
pet, and pride, sent forth on a mission such as it had
never had before. But Mark did not see Helen, and only
his mother's face as it looked when it said, “God bless
my boy,” was clear before his eyes as he moved on
through Broadway, and down Cortlandt street, until the
ferry-boat received him, and the crowd began to disperse.
Now that Mark was gone, Mrs. Banker turned intuitively
to Helen, finding greater comfort in her quiet
sympathy than in the more wordy condolence offered her
by Juno, who, as she heard nothing from the letter, began
to lose her fears of detection, and even suffer her
friends to rally her upon the absence of Mark Ray, and
the anxiety she must feel on his account. Moments
there were, however, when thoughts of the stolen letter
brought a pang, while Helen's face was a continual reproach,
and she was glad when, towards the first of May,
her rival left New York for Silverton, where, as the spring
and summer work came on, her services were needed.
CHAPTER XXIX. KATY GOES TO SILVERTON.
A SUMMER day in Silverton—a soft, bright Angust
day, when the early rare-ripes by the well
were turning their red cheeks to the sun, and the
flowers in the garden were lifting their heads
proudly, and nodding to each other as if they knew the
secret which made that day so bright above all others.
Old Whitey, by the hitching-post, was munching at his
oats and glancing occasionally at the covered buggy
standing on the green sward, fresh and clean as water
from the pond could make it; the harness, lying upon a
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rock, where Katy used to feed the sheep with salt, and
the whip standing upright in its socket, were waiting for
the deacon, who was donning his best suit of clothes, even
to a stiff shirt collar which almost cut his ears, his face shining
with anticipations which he knew would be realized.
Katy was really coming home, and in proof thereof there
were behind the house and barn piles of rubbish, lath
and plaster, mouldy paper and broken bricks, the tokens
and remains of the repairing process, which for so long
a time had made the farm-house a scene of dire confusion,
driving its inmates nearly distracted, except when
they remembered for whose sake they endured so much,
inhaling clouds of lime, stepping over heaps of mortar,
tearing their dress skirts on sundry nails projecting from
every conceivable quarter, and wondering the while if
the masons ever would finish or the carpenters be gone.
As a condition on which Katy might be permitted to
come home, Wilford had stipulated an improvement in
the interior arrangement of the house, offering to bear
the expense even to the furnishing of the rooms. To
this the family demurred at first, not liking Wilford's
dictatorial manner, nor his insinuation that their home
was not good enough for his wife. But Helen turned
the tide, appreciating Wilford's feelings better than the
others could do, and urging a compliance with his request.
“Anything to get Katy home,” she said, and so the
chimney was torn away, a window was cut here and an
addition made there, until the house was really improved
with its pleasant, modern parlor and the large
airy bedroom, with bathing-room attached, the whole the
idea of Wilford, who graciously deigned to come out
once or twice from New London, where he was spending
a few weeks, to superintend the work and suggest how
it should be done.
The furniture, too, which he sent on from New York,
was perfect in its kind, and suitable in every respect and
Helen enjoyed the settling very much, and when it was
finished it was hard telling which was the more pleased,
she or good Aunt Betsy, who, having confessed in a general
kind of way at a sewing society, that she did go to a
play-house, and was not so very sorry either, except as the
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example might do harm, had nothing to fear from New
York, and was proportionably happy. At least she
would have been if Morris had not seemed so off, as she
expressed it, taking but little interest in the preparations
and evincing no pleasure at Katy's expected visit.
He had been polite to Wilford, had kept him at Linwood,
taking him to and from the depot, but even Wilford
had thought him changed, telling Katy how very
sober and grave he had become, rarely smiling, and
not seeming to care to talk unless it were about his profession
or on some religious topic. And Morris was
greatly changed. The wound which in most hearts
would have healed by this time, had grown deeper with
each succeeding year, while from all he heard he felt
sure that Katy's marriage was a sad mistake, wishing
sometimes that he had spoken, and so perhaps have saved
her from the life in which she could not be wholly
free. “She would be happier with me,” he had said,
with a sad smile to Helen, when she told him of some
things which she had not mentioned elsewhere, and
there were great tears in Morris's eyes, when Helen
spoke of Katy's distress, and the look which came into
her face when baby was taken away. Times there were
when the silent Doctor, living alone at Linwood, felt
that his grief was too great to bear. But the deep
waters were always forded safely, and Morris's faith in
God prevailed, so that only a dull heavy pain remained,
with the consciousness that it was no sin to remember
Katy as she was remembered now. Oh how he longed
to see her, and yet how he dreaded it, lest poor weak
human flesh should prove inadequate to the sight. But
she was coming home; Providence had ordered that
and he accepted it, looking eagerly for the time, but repressing
his eagerness, so that not even Helen suspected
how impatient he was for the day of her return. Four
weeks she had been at the Pequot House in New London,
occupying a little cottage and luxuriating in the
joy of having her child with her almost every day.
Country air and country nursing had wrought wonders
in the baby, which had grown so beautiful and bright
that it was no longer in Wilford's way save as it took
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too much of Katy's time, and made her care less for the
gay crowd at the hotel.
Marian was working at her trade, and never came to
the hotel except one day when Wilford was in New
York, but that day sufficed for Katy to know that after
herself it was Marian whom baby loved the best—
Marian, who cared for it even more than Mrs. Hubbell.
And Katy was glad to have it so, especially after Wilford
and his mother decided that she must leave the child in
New London while she made the visit to Silverton.
Wilford did not like her taking so much care of it as
she was inclined to do. It had grown too heavy for her
to lift; it was better with Mrs. Hubbell, he said and so
to the inmates of the farm-house Katy wrote that baby
was not coming.
They were bitterly disappointed, for Katy's baby had
been anticipated quite as much as Katy herself, and Aunt
Betsy had brought from the wood-shed chamber a cradle
which nearly forty years before had rocked the deacon's
only child, the little boy, who died just as he had learned
to lisp his mother's name. As a memento of those days
the cradle had been kept, Katy using it sometimes for
her kittens and her dolls, until she grew too old for
that, when it was put away beneath the eaves whence
Aunt Betsy dragged it, scouring it with soap and sand,
until it was white as snow. But it would not be
needed, and with a sigh the old lady carried it back,
thinking “things had come to a pretty pass when a
woman who could dance and carouse till twelve o'clock
at night was too weakly to take care of her child,” and
feeling a very little awe of Katy who must have grown
so fine a lady.
But all this passed away as the time drew near when
Katy was to come, and no one seemed happier than
Aunt Betsy on the morning when Uncle Ephraim drove
from the door, setting old Whitey into a canter, which,
by the time the “race” was reached, had become a rapid
trot, the old man holding up his reins and looking
proudly at the oat-fed animal, speeding along so fast.
He did not have long to wait this time, for the train
soon came rolling across the meadow, and while his
head was turned towards the car where he fancied she
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might be, a pair of arms was thrown impetuously round
his neck, and a little figure, standing on tiptoe, almost
pulled him down in its attempts to kiss him.
“Uncle Eph! oh, Uncle Eph, I've come! I'm here!” a
young voice cried; but the words the deacon would have
spoken were smothered by the kisses pressed upon his
lips, kisses which only came to an end when a voice
said rather reprovingly, “There, Katy, that will do.
You have almost strangled him.”
Wilford had not been expected, and the expression of
the deacon's face was not a very cordial greeting to the
young man who hastened to explain that he was going
directly on to Boston. IN his presence the deacon was
not quite natural, but he lifted in his arms his “little
Katy-did,” and looked straight into her face, where there
were as yet no real lines of care, only shadows, which
told that in some respects she was not the same Katy he
had parted with two years before. There was a good
deal of the city about her dress and style; and the deacon
felt a little overawed at first; but this wore off as,
on their way to the farm-house, she talked to him in her
old, loving manner, and asked questions about the people
he supposed she had forgotten, nodding to everybody
she met, whether she knew them or not, and at
last, as the old house came in sight, hiding her face in a
gush of happy tears upon his neck. Scarcely waiting
for old Whitey to stop, but with one leap clearing the
wheel, she threw herself into the midst of the women
waiting on the door step to meet her. It was a joyful
meeting, and when the first excitement was over, Katy
inspected the improvements, praising them all and congratulating
herself upon the nice time she was to have.
“You don't know what a luxury it is to feel that I can
rest,” she said to Helen.
“Didn't you rest at New London?” Helen asked.
“Yes, some,” Katy replied; “but there were dances
every night, or sails upon the bay, and I had to go, for
many of our friends were there, and Wilford was not
willing for me to be quiet.”
This, then, was the reason why Katy came home so
weary and pale, and craving so much the rest she had
not had in more than two years. But she would get it
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now, and before the first dinner was eaten some of her
old color came stealing back to her cheeks, and her eyes
began to dance just as they used to do, while her merry
voice rang out in silvery peals at Aunt Betsy's quaint remarks,
which struck her so forcibly from not having
heard them for so long a time. Freed from the restraint
of her husband's presence, she came back at once to
what she was when a young, careless girl she sat upon
the door-steps and curled the dandelion stalks. She did
not do this now, for there were none to curl; but she
strung upon a thread the delicate petals of the phlox
growing by the door, and then bound it as a crown about
the head of her mother, who could not quite recognize
her Katy in the elegant Mrs. Wilford Cameron, with
rustling silk, and diamonds flashing on her hands every
time they moved. But when she saw her racing with
the old brown goat and its little kid out in the apple
orchard, her head uncovered, and her bright curls blowing
about her face, the feeling disappeared, and she felt
that Katy had indeed come back again.
Katy had inquired for Morris immediately after her
arrival, but in her excitement she had forgotten him
again, until tea was over, when, just as she had done
on the day of her return from Canandaigua, she took
her hat and started on the well-worn path toward Linwood.
Airily she tripped along, her light plaid silk
gleaming through the deep green of the trees and revealing
her coming to the tired man sitting upon a little rustic
seat, beneath a chestnut tree, where he once had sat
with Katy, and extracted a cruel sliver from her hand,
kissing the place to make it well as she told him to.
She was a child then, a little girl of twelve, and he was
twenty, but the sight of her pure face lifted confidingly
to his had stirred his heart as no other face had stirred
it since, making him look forward to a time when the
hand he kissed would be his own, and his the fairy form
he watched so carefully as it expanded day by day into
the perfect woman. He was thinking of that time now,
and how differently it had all turned out, when he heard
the bounding step and saw her coming toward him,
swinging her hat in childish abandon, and warbling a
song she had learned from him.
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“Morris, oh, Morris!” she cried, as she ran eagerly
forward; “I am so glad to see you. It seems so nice to
be with you once more here in the dear old woods.
Don't get up—please don't get up,” she continued, as he
started to rise.
She was standing before him, a hand on either side of
his face, into which she was looking quite as wistfully as
he was regarding her. Something she missed in his
manner, which troubled her; and thinking she knew
what it was she said to him, “Why don't you kiss me,
Morris? You used to. Ain't you glad to see me?”
“Yes, very glad,” he answered, and drawing her down
beside him, he kissed her twice, but so gravely, that
Katy was not satisfied at all, and tears gathered in her
eyes as she tried to think what ailed Morris.
He was very thin, and there were a few white hairs
about his temples, so that, though four years younger
than her husband, he seemed to her much older, quite
grandfatherly in fact, and this accounted for the liberties
she took, asking what was the matter, and trying to
make him like her again, by assuring him that she was
not as vain and foolish as he might suppose from what Helen
had probably told him of her life since leaving Silverton.
“I do not like it at all,” she said. “I am in it,
and must conform; but, oh Morris! you don't know how
much happier I should be if Wilford were just like you,
and lived at Linwood instead of New York. I should be
so happy here with baby all the time.”
It was well she spoke that name, for Morris could not
have borne much more; but the mention of her child
quieted him at once, so that he could calmly tell her she
was the same to him she always had been, while with
his next breath he asked, “Where is your baby, Katy?”
adding with a smile, “I can remember when you were a
baby, and I held you in my arms.”
“Can you really?” Katy said; and as if that remembrance
made him older than the hills, she nestled her
curly head against his shoulder, while she told him of her
bright-eyed darling, and as she talked, the mother-love
which spread itself over her girlish face made it more
beautiful than anything Morris had ever seen.
“Surely an angel's countenance cannot be fairer, purer
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than hers,” he thought, as she talked of the only thing
which had a power to separate her from him, making her
seem as a friend, or at most as a beloved sister.
A long time they talked together, and the sun was setting
ere Morris rose, suggesting that she go home, as the
night dew would soon be falling.
“And you are not as strong as you once were,” he added,
pulling her shawl around her shoulders with careful
solicitude, and thinking how slender she had become.
From the back parlor Helen saw them coming up the
path, detecting the changed expression of Morris's face.
and feeling a pang of fear when, as he left them after nine
o'clock, she heard her mother say that he had not appeared
so natural since Katy went away as he had done that
night. Knowing what she did, Helen trembled for
Morris, with this terrible temptation before him, and
Morris trembled for himself as he went back the lonely
path, and stopped again beneath the chestnut tree
where he had so lately sat with Katy. There was a great
fear at his heart, and it found utterance in words as
kneeling by the rustic bench with only the lonely night
around him and the green boughs over head, he asked
that he might be kept from sin, both in thought and deed,
and be to Katy Cameron just what she took him for, her
friend and elder brother. And God, who knew the sincerity
of the heart thus pleading before him, heard and
answered the prayer, so that after that first night of trial
Morris could look on Katy without a wish that she were
otherwise than Wilford Cameron's wife and the mother
of his child. He was happier because of her being at the
farm-house, though he did not go there one half as often
as she came to him.
Those September days were happy ones to Katy, who
became a child again—a petted, spoiled child, whom
every one caressed and suffered to have her way. To
Uncle Ephraim it was as if some bright angel had suddenly
dropped into his path, and flooded it with sunshine.
He was so glad to have again his “Katy-did,” who
went with him to the fields, waiting patiently till his
work was done, and telling him of all the wondrous
things she saw abroad, but speaking little of her city
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life. That was something she did not care to talk about,
and but for Wilford's letters, and the frequent mention
of baby, the deacon could easily have imagined that
Katy had never left him. But these were barriers between
the old life and the present; these were the insignia
of Mrs. Wilford Cameron, who was watched and envied
by the curious Silvertonians, and pronounced charming
by them all. Still there was one drawback to Katy's
happiness. She missed her child, mourning for it so
much that her family, quite as anxious as herself to see
it, suggested her sending for it. It would surely take
no harm with them, and Marian would come with it, if
Mrs. Hubbell could not. To this plan Katy listened
more willingly from the fact that Wilford had gone West,
and the greater the distance between them the more she
dared to do. And so Marian Hazelton was one day
startled at the sudden appearance at the cottage of Katy,
who had come to take her and baby to Silverton.
There was no resisting the vehemence of Katy's arguments,
and before the next day's sunsetting, the farm-house,
usually so quiet and orderly, had been turned into
one general nursery, where Baby Cameron reigned
supreme, screaming with delight at the tin ware which
Aunt Betsy brought out, from the cake-cutter to the
dipper, the little creature beating a noisy tattoo upon
the latter with an iron spoon, and then for diversion
burying its fat dimpled hands in Uncle Ephraim's
long white hair, for the old man went down upon all
fours to do his great-grand niece homage.
That night Morris came up, stopping suddenly as a
loud baby laugh reached him, even across the orchard,
and leaning for a moment against the wall, while he
tried to prepare himself for the shock it would be to see
Katy's child, and hold it in his arms, as he knew he
must, or the mother be aggrieved.
He had supposed it was pretty, but he was not prepared
for the beautiful little cherub which in its short
white dress, with its soft curls of golden brown clustering
about its head, stood holding to a chair, pushing it
occasionally, and venturing now and then to take a step,
while its infantile laugh mingled with the screams of its
delighted auditors, watching it with so much interest.
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There was one great, bitter, burning pang, and then,
folding his arms composedly upon the window sill, Dr.
Grant stood looking in upon the occupants of the room,
whistling at last to baby, as he was accustomed to whistle
to the children of his patients.
“Oh, Morris,” Katy cried, “Baby can almost walk,
Marian has taken so much pains, and she can say `papa.'
Isn't she a beauty?”
Baby had turned her head by this time, her ear caught
by the whistle and her eye arrested by something in
Morris which fascinated her gaze. Perhaps she thought
of Wilford, of whom she had been very fond, for she
pushed her chair towards him and then held up her fat
arms for him to take her.
Never was mother prouder than Katy during the first
few days succeeding baby's arrival, while the family
seemed to tread on air, so swiftly the time went by with
that active little life in their midst, stirring them up so
constantly, putting to rout all their rules of order and
keeping their house in a state of delightful confusion.
It was wonderful how rapidly the child improved with
so many teachers, learning to lisp its mother's name and
taught by her, attempting to say “Doctor.” From the
very first the child took to Morris, crying after him whenever
he went away, and hailing his arrival with a crow
of joy and an eager attempt to reach him.
“It was altogether too forward for this world,” Aunt
Betsy often said, shaking her head ominously, but not
really meaning what she predicted, even when for a few
days it did not seem as bright as usual, but lay quietly
in Katy's lap, a blue look about the mouth and a flush
upon its cheeks, which neither Morris nor Marian liked.
More accustomed to children than the other members
of the family, they both watched it closely, Morris coming
over twice one day, and the last time he came regarding
Katy with a look as if he would fain ward off
from her some evil which he feared.
“What is it, Morris?” she asked. “Is baby going to
be very sick?” and a great crushing fear came upon her
as she waited for his answer.
“I hope not,” he said; “I cannot tell as yet; the
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symptoms are like cholera infantum, of which I have several
cases, but if taken in time I apprehend no danger.”
There was a low shriek and baby opened its heavy lids
and moaned, while Helen came at once to Katy, who was
holding her hand upon her heart as if the pain had entered
there. To Marian it was no news, for ever since
the early morning she had suspected the nature of the
disease stealing over the little child. All night the
light burned in the farm-house, where there were anxious,
troubled faces, Katy bending constantly over her
darling, and even amid her terrible anxiety, dreading
Wilford's displeasure when he should hear what she had
done and its possible result. She did not believe as yet
that her child would die; but she suffered acutely,
watching for the early dawn when Morris had said he
would be there, and when at last he came, begging of
him to leave his other patients and care only for baby.
“Would that be right?” Morris asked, and Katy
blushed for her selfishness when she heard how many
were sick and dying around them. “I will spend every
leisure moment here,” he said, leaving his directions with
Marian and then hurrying away without a word of hope for
the child, which grew worse so fast that when the night
shut down again it lay upon a pillow, its blue eyes closed
and its head thrown back, while its sad moanings could
only be hushed by carrying it in one's arms about the
room, a task which Katy could not do.
She had tried it at first, refusing all their offers with the
reply, “Baby is mine, and shall I not carry her?”
But the feeble strength gave out, the limbs began to
totter, and staggering backward she cried, “Somebody
must take her.”
It was Marian who went forward, Marian, whose face
was a puzzle as she took the infant in her stronger arms,
her stony eyes, which had not wept as yet, fastening
themselves upon the face of Wilford Cameron's child
with a look which seemed to say, “Retribution, retribution.”
But only when she remembered the father, now so
proud of his daughter, was that word in her heart. She
could not harbor it when she glanced at the mother,
and her lips moved in earnest prayer that, if possible,
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God would not leave her so desolate. An hour later and
Morris came, relieving Marian of her burden, which he
carried in his own arms, while he strove to comfort Katy,
who, crouching by the empty crib, was sitting motionless
in a kind of dumb despair, all hope crushed out by
his answer to her entreaties that he would tell her the
truth, and keep nothing back.
“I think your baby will die,” he said to her very
gently, pausing a moment in awe of the white face,
whose expression terrified him, it was so full of agony.
Bowing her head upon her hands, poor Katy whispered
sadly, “God must not take my baby. Oh, Morris,
pray that he will not. He will hear and answer you; I
have been so bad I cannot pray, but I am not going to
be bad again. If he will let me keep my darling I will
begin a new life. I will try to serve him. Dear Lord,
hear and answer, and not let baby die.”
She was praying herself now, and Morris's broad chest
heaved as he glanced at her kneeling figure, and then at
the death-like face upon the pillow, with the pinched look
about the nose and lips, which to his practiced eye was
a harbinger of death.
“It's father should be here,” he thought, and when
Katy lifted up her head again he asked if she was sure
her husband had not yet returned from Minnesota.
“Yes, sure—that is, I think he has not,” was Katy's
answer, a chill creeping over her at the thought of meeting
Wilford, and giving him his daughter dead.
“I shall telegraph in the morning at all events,” Morris
continued, “and if he is not in New York, it will be
forwarded.”
“Yes, that will be best,” was the reply, spoken so
mournfully that Morris stopped in front of Katy, and
tried to reason with her.
But Katy would not listen, and only answered that
he did not know, he could not feel, he never had been
tried.
“Perhaps not,” Morris said; “but Heaven is my witness,
Katy, that if I could save you this pain by giving
up my life for baby's I would do it willingly; but God
does not give us our choice. He knoweth what is best,
and baby is better with Him than us.”
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For a moment Katy was silent; then, as a new idea
took possession of her mind, she sprang to Morris's side
and seizing his arm, demanded, “Can an unbaptized
child be saved?”
“We nowhere read that baptism is a saving ordinance,”
was Morris's answer; while Katy continued,
“but do you believe they will be saved?”
“Yes, I do,” was the decided response, which, however,
did not ease Katy's mind, and she moaned on, “A
child of heathen parents may, but I knew better. I
knew it was my duty to give the child to God, and for a
foolish fancy withheld the gift until it is too late, and
God will take it without the mark upon its forehead, the
water on its brow. Oh, baby, baby, if she should be
lost—no name, no mark, no baptismal sign.”
“Not water, but the blood of Jesus cleanseth from all
sin,” Morris said, “and as sure as he died so sure this
little one is safe. Besides, there may be time for the
baptism yet—that is, to-morrow. Baby will not die to-night,
and if you like, it still shall have a name.”
Eagerly Katy seized upon that idea, thinking more
of the sign, the water, than the name, which scarcely
occupied her thoughts at all. It did not matter what
the child was called, so that it became one of the little
ones in glory, and with a calmer, quieter demeanor than
she had shown that day, she saw Morris depart at a late
hour; and then turning to the child which Uncle Ephraim
was holding, kissed it lovingly, whispering as she
did so, “Baby shall be baptized—baby shall have the
sign.”
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CHAPTER XXX. LITTLE GENEVRA.
[figure description] Page 264.[end figure description]
MORRIS had telegraphed to New York, receiving
in reply that Wilford was hourly expected home,
and would at once hasten on to Silverton. The
clergyman, Mr. Kelly, had also been seen, but
owing to a funeral which would take him out of town,
he could not be at the farm-house until five in the afternoon,
when, if the child still lived, he would be glad to
officiate as requested. All this Morris had communicated
to Katy, who listened in a kind of stupor, gasping for
breath, when she heard that Wilford would soon be there,
and moaning “that will be too late,” when told that the
baptism could not take place till night. Then kneeling
by the crib where the child was lying, she fastened her
great, sad blue eyes upon the pallid face with an earnestness
as if thus she would hold till nightfall the life flickering
so faintly and seeming so nearly finished. The
wailings had ceased, and they no longer carried it in
their arms, but had placed it in its crib, where it lay perfectly
still, save as its eyes occasionally unclosed and
turned wistfully towards the cups, where it knew was
something which quenched its raging thirst. Once indeed,
as the hours crept on to noon and Katy bent over
it so that her curls swept its face, it seemed to know her,
and the little wasted hand was uplifted and rested on her
cheek with the same caressing motion it had been wont
to use in health. Then hope whispered that it might
live, and with a great cry of joy Katy sobbed, “She
knows me, Morris—mother, see; she knows me. Maybe
she will live!”
But the dull stupor which succeeded swept all hope
away, and again Katy resumed her post, watching first
her dying child, and then the long hands of the clock
which crept on so slowly, pointing to only two when she
thought it must be five. Would that hour never come,
or coming, would it find baby there? None could answer
that last question—they could only wait and pray; and
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as they waited the warm September sun neared the western
sky till its yellow beams came stealing through the
window and across the floor to where Katy sat watching
its onward progress, and looking sometimes out upon the
hills where the purplish autumnal haze was lying just as
she once loved to see it. But she did not heed it now,
nor care how bright the day with the flitting shadows
dancing on the grass, the tall flowers growing by the
door, and old Whitey standing by the gate, his head
stretched towards the house in a kind of dreamy, listening
attitude, as if he, too, knew of the great sorrow hastening
on so fast. The others saw all this, and it made
their hearts ache more as they thought of the beautiful
little child going from their midst when they wished so
much to keep her. Katy had only one idea, and that was
of the child, growing very restless now, and throwing up
its arms as if in pain. It was striking five, and with each
stroke the dying baby moaned, while Katy strained her
ear to catch the sound of horses' hoofs hurrying up the
road. The clergyman had come, and the inmates of the
house gathered round in silence, while he made ready to
receive the child into Christ's flock.
Mrs. Lennox had questioned Helen about the name,
and Helen had answered, “Katy knows, I presume. It
does not matter,” but no one had spoken directly to
Katy, who had scarcely given it a thought, caring more
for the rite she had deferred so long.
“He must hasten,” she said to Morris, her eyes fixed
upon the panting child she had lifted to her own lap,
and thus adjured the clergyman failed to make the usual
inquiry concerning the name he was to give.
Calm and white as a marble statue, Marian Hazelton
glided to the back of Katy's chair, and pressing both
her hands upon it, leaned over Katy so that her eyes,
too, were fixed upon the little face, from which they never
turned but once, and that when the clergyman's voice was
heard asking for a name. There was an instant's silence,
and Katy's lips began to move, when one of Marian's
hands was laid upon her head, while the other took in
its own the limp, white baby fingers, and Marian's voice
was very steady in its tone as it said, “Genevra.”
“Yes, Genevra,” Katy whispered, and the solemn
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words were heard, “Genevra, I baptize thee in the name
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
Softly the baptismal waters fell upon the pale forehead,
and at their touch the little Genevra's eyes unclosed, the
waxen fingers withdrew themselves from Marian's grasp,
and again sought the mother's cheek, resting there for an
instant; while a smile broke around the baby's lips, which
tried to say “Mam-ma.” Then the hand fell back, down
upon Marian's, the soft eyes closed, the limbs grew rigid,
the shadow of death grew deeper, and while the prayer
was said, and Marian's tears fell with Katy's upon the
brow where the baptismal waters were not dried, the
angel came, and when the prayer was ended, Morris,
who knew what the rest did not, took the lifeless form
from Katy's lap, and whispered to her gently, “Katy,
your baby is dead!”
An hour later, and the sweet little creature, which had
been a sunbeam in that house for a few happy days, lay
upon the bed where Katy said it must be laid; its form
shrouded in the christening robe which grandma Cameron
had bought, flowers upon its pillow, flowers upon its
bosom, flowers in its hands, which Marian had put there;
for Marian's was the mind which thought of everything
concerning the dead child; and Helen, as she watched
her, wondered at the mighty love which showed itself in
every lineament of her face, the blue veins swelling in
her forehead, her eyes bloodshot, and her lips shut firmly
together, as if it were by mere strength of will that she
kept back the scalding tears as she dressed the little Genevra.
They spoke of that name in the kitchen when
the first great shock was over, and Helen explained why
it had been Katy's choice.
It was Morris's task to comfort poor, stricken Katy,
telling her of the blessed Saviour who loved the little
children while here on the earth, and to whom her darling
had surely gone.
“Safe in His arms, it would not come back if it could,”
he said, “and neither would you have it.”
But Katy was the mother, and human love could not
so soon submit, but went out after the lost one with a
piteous, agonizing wail.
“Oh, I want my baby back. I know she is safe, but I
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want her back. She was my life—all I had to love,”
Katy moaned, rocking to and fro in this her first hour of
bereavement, “and Wilford will blame me so much for
bringing my baby here to die. He will say it was my
fault; and that I can't bear. I know I killed my baby;
but I did not mean to. I would give my life for hers, if
like her I was ready,” and into Katy's face there came a
look of fear which Morris failed to understand, not knowing
Wilford as well as Katy knew him.
At nine o'clock next day there came a telegram. Wilford
had reached New York and would be in Silverton
that afternoon, accompanied by Bell. At this last Marian
Hazelton caught as an excuse for what she intended doing.
She could not remain there after Wilford came, nor
was it necessary. Her task was done, or would be when
she had finished the wreath and cross of flowers she was
making for the coffin. Laying them on baby's pillow, Marian
went in quest of Helen, to whom she explained that
as Bell Cameron was coming, and the house would be full,
she had decided upon going to West Silverton, as she
wished to see the old lady with whom she once boarded,
and who had been so kind to her.
“I might stay,” she added, as Helen began to protest,
“but you do not need me. I have done all I can,
and would rather go where I can be quiet for a little.”
To this last argument there could be no demur, and
so the same carriage which at ten o'clock went for Wilford
Cameron carried Marian Hazleton to the village
where she preferred being left.
In much anxiety and distress Wilford Cameron read
the telegram announcing baby's illness.
“At Silverton!” he said. “How can that be when
the child was at New London?” and he glanced again
at the words:
“Your child is dying at Silverton. Come at once.
M. Grant.”
There could be no mistake, and Wilford's face grew
dark, for he guessed the truth, censuring Katy much,
but censuring her family more. They of course had
encouraged her in the plan of taking her child from New
London, where it was doing so well, and this was the
result. Wilford was proud of his daughter now, and
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[figure description] Page 268.[end figure description]
during the few weeks he had been with it, the little thing
had found a strong place in his love. Many times he
had thought of it during his journey West, indulging
in bright anticipations of the coming winter, when he
would have it home again. It would not be in his way
now. On the contrary, it would add much to his luxurious
home, and the young father's heart bounded with
thoughts of the beautiful baby as he had last seen it,
crowing its good-bye to him and trying to lisp his name,
its sweet voice haunting him for weeks, and making him
a softer, better man, who did not frown impatiently
upon the little children in the cars, but who took notice
of them all, even laying his hand once on a little curly
head which reminded him of baby's.
Alas for him! he little dreamed of the great shock in
store for him. The child was undoubtedly very sick,
he said, but that it could die was not possible; and so,
though he made ready to hasten to it, he did not withhold
his opinion of the rashness which had brought it
to such peril.
“Had Katy obeyed me it would not have happened,”
he said, pacing up and down the parlor and preparing
to say more, when Bell came to Katy's aid, and lighting
upon him, asked what he meant by blaming his wife so
much.
“For my part,” she said, “I think there has been too
much fault-finding and dictation from the very day of
the child's birth till now, and if God takes it, I shall
think it a judgment upon you. First you were vexed
with Katy because it was not a boy, as if she were to
blame; then you did not like it because it was not more
promising and fair; next it was in your way, and so you
sent it off, never considering Katy any more than if she
were a more automaton. Then you must needs forbid
her taking it home to her own family, as if they had no
interest in it. I tell you, Will, it is not all Cameron—
there is some Barlow blood in its veins—Aunt Betsy.
Barlow's, too, and you cannot wash it out. Katy had a
right to take her own child where she pleased, and you
are not a man if you censure her for it, as I see in your
eyes you mean to do. Suppose it had staid in New
London and been struck with lightning—you would
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[figure description] Page 269.[end figure description]
have been to blame, of course, according to your own
view of things.”
There was too much truth in Bell's remarks for Wilford
to retort, even had he been disposed, and he contented
himself with a haughty toss of his head as she left the
room to get herself in readiness for the journey she insisted
upon taking. Wilford was glad she was going, as her
presence at Silverton would relieve him of the awkward
embarrassment he always felt when there; and magnanimously
forgiving her for the plainness of her speech,
he was the most attentive of brothers until Silverton was
reached, and he found Dr. Grant awaiting for him.
Something in his face, as he came forward to meet them,
startled both Wilford and Bell, the latter of whom asked
quickly,
“Is the baby better?”
“Baby is dead,” was the brief reply, and Wilford staggered
back against the door-post, where he leaned a
moment for support in that first great shock for which he
was not prepared.
Upon the door-step Bell sat down, crying quietly, for
she had loved the child, and she listened anxiously while
Morris repeated the particulars of its illness and then
spoke of Katy's reproaching herself so bitterly for having
brought it from New London. “She seems entirely
crushed,” he continued, when they were driving towards
the farm-house. “For a few hours I trembled for her
reason, while the fear that you might reproach her added
much to the poignancy of her grief.”
Morris said this very calmly, as if it were not what he
had all the while intended saying, and his eye turned towards
Wilford, whose lips were compressed with the
emotion he was trying to control. It was Bell who spoke
first, Bell who said impulsively, “Poor Katy, I knew she
would feel so, but it is unnecessary, for none but a savage
would reproach her now, even if she were in fault.”
Morris blessed Bell Cameron in his heart, knowing how
much influence her words would have upon her brother,
who brushed away the first tear he had shed, and tried
to say that “of course she was not to blame.”
They were in sight of the farm-house now, and Bell,
with her city ideas, was looking curiously at it, mentally
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pronouncing it a nicer, pleasanter place than she had supposed.
It was very quiet about the house, and old
Whitey's neigh as Morris's span of bays came up was the
only sound which greeted them. In the wood-shed door
Uncle Ephraim sat smoking his clay pipe and likening
the feathery waves which curled above his head to the
little soul so recently gone upward, while by his side, upon
a log of wood, holding a pan of the luscious peaches
she was slicing up for tea, sat a woman whom Bell knew
at once for Aunt Betsy Barlow, and who, pan in hand,
came forward to meet her, curtsying very low when introduced
by Morris, and asking to be excused from shaking
hands, inasmuch as hers were not fit to be touched.
Bell's quick eye took her in at a glance, from her clean
spotted gown to her plain muslin cap tied with a black ribbon,
put on that day with a view to mourning, and then
darted off to Uncle Ephraim, who won her heart at once
when she heard how his voice trembled as he took Wilford's
hand and said so pityingly, so father-like, “Young
man, this is a sad day for you, and you have my sympathy,
for I remember well how my heart ached when, on
just such a day as this, my only child lay dead as yours
is lying.”
Every muscle of Wilford's face quivered, but he was too
proud to show all that he felt, and he was glad when Helen
appeared in the door, as that diverted his mind, and
he greeted her cordially, stooping down and kissing her
forehead, a thing he had never done before. But sorrow
is a great softener, and Wilford was very sorry, feeling
his loss more here, where everything was so quiet, so suggestive
of death.
“Where is Katy?” he asked.
“She is sleeping for the first time since the baby died.
She is in here with the child. She will stay nowhere
else,” Helen said, opening the door of the bedroom and
motioning Wilford in.
With hushed breath and a beating heart, Wilford
stepped across the threshold, and Helen closed the
door, leaving him alone with the living and the dead.
Pure and beautiful as some fair blossom, the dead
child lay upon the bed, the curls of golden hair
clustering about its head, and on its lips the smile which
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settled there when it tried to say “mamma.” Its dimpled
hands were folded upon its breast, where lay the cross of
flowers which Marian Hazelton had made. There were
flowers upon its pillow, flowers around its head, flowers
upon its shroud, flowers everywhere, and itself the fairest
flower of all, Wilford thought, as he stood gazing at it and
then let his eye move on to where poor, tired, worn-out
Katy had crept up so close beside it that her breath touched
the marble cheek and her own disordered hair rested upon
the pillow of her child. Even in her sleep her tears kept
dropping and the pale lips quivered in a grieved, touching
way. Hard indeed would Wilford have been had he
cherished one bitter thought against the wife so wounded.
He could not when he saw her, but no one ever
knew just what passed through his mind during the half
hour he sat there beside her, scarcely stirring and not
daring to kiss his child lest he should awaken her. He
could hear the ticking of his watch and the beating of his
heart as he waited for the first sound which should herald's
Katy's waking.
Suddenly there was a low, gasping moan, and Katy's
eyes unclosed and rested on her husband. He was bending
over her in an instant, and her arms were round his
neck, while she said to him so sadly,
“Our baby is dead—you've nobody left but me; and
oh! Wilford, you will not blame me for bringing baby here?
I did not think she'd die. I'd give my life for hers if that
would bring her back. Would you rather it was me
lying as baby lies, and she here in your arms?”
“No, Katy,” Wilford answered, and by his voice Katy
knew that she was wholly forgiven, crying on his neck in
a plaintive, piteous way, while Wilford soothed and pitied
and caressed, feeling subdued and humbled, and we must
confess it, feeling too how very good and generous he
was to be thus forbearing, when but for Katy's act of
disobedience they might not now be childless!
With a great gush of tears Bell Cameron bent over the
little form, and then enfolded Katy in a more loving embrace
than she had ever given her before; but whatever
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she might have said was prevented by the arrival of the
coffin, and the confusion which followed.
Much Wilford regretted that New York was so far
away, for a city coffin was more suitable, he thought, for
a child of his, than the one which Dr. Grant had ordered.
But that was really of less consequence than the question
where the child should be buried. A costly monument
at Greenwood was in accordance with his ideas, but all
things indicated a contemplated burial there in the
country churchyard, and sorely perplexed, he called on
Bell as the only Cameron at hand, to know what he
should do.
“Do just as Katy prefers,” was Bell's reply, as she
led him to the coffin and pointed to the name: “Little
Genevra Cameron, aged nine months and twenty days.”
“What is it, Wilford—what is the matter?” she asked,
as her brother turned whiter than his child.
Had “Genevra Lambert, aged 22,” met his eye, he
could not have been more startled than he was; but soon
rallying, he said to Morris,
“The child was baptized then?”
“Yes, baptized Genevra. That was Katy's choice, I
understand,” Morris replied, and Wilford bowed his
head, wishing the Genevra across the sea might know
that his child bore her name.
“Perhaps she does,” he thought, and his heart grew
warm with the fancy that possibly in that other world,
whose existence he never really doubted, the Genevra he
had wronged would care for his child, if children there
need care. “She will know it is mine at least,” he said,
and with a thoughtful face he went in quest of Katy,
whom he found sobbing by the side of the mourning
garments just sent in for her inspection.
Wilford was averse to black. It would not become
Katy, he feared, and it would be an unanswerable reason
for her remaining closely home for the entire winter.
“What's this?” he asked, lifting the crape veil and
dropping it again with an impatient gesture as Helen
replied, “It is Katy's mourning veil.”
Contrary to his expectations, black was becoming to
Katy, who looked like a pure white lily, as, leaning on
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Wilford's arm next day, she stood by the grave where
they were burying her child.
Wilford had spoken to her of Greenwood, but she had
begged so hard that he had given up that idea, suggesting
next, as more in accordance with city custom, that
she remain at home while he only followed to the grave;
but from this Katy recoiled in such distress that he gave
that up too, and bore, magnanimously as he thought, the
sight of all the Barlows standing around that grave, alike
mourners with himself, and all a right to be there. Wilford
felt his loss deeply, and his heart ached to its very
core as he heard the gravel rattling down upon the coffinlid
which covered the beautiful child he had loved so
much. But amid it all he never for a moment forgot
that he was Wilford Cameron, and infinitely superior to
the crowd around him—except, indeed, his wife, his sister,
Dr. Grant, and Helen. He could bear to see them
sorry, and feel that by their sorrow they honored the
memory of his child. But for the rest—the village herd,
with the Barlows in their train—he had no affinity, and
his manner was as haughty and distant as ever as he
passed through their midst back to the carriage, which
took him again to the farm-house.
CHAPTER XXXI. AFTER THE FUNERAL.
HAD there been a train back to New York that
afternoon Wilford would most certainly have
suggested going; but as there was none he passed
the time as well as he could, finding Bell a great
help to him, but wondering that she could assimilate so
readily with such people, declaring herself in love with
the farm-house, and saying she should like to remain
there for weeks, if the days were all as sunny as this,
the dahlias as gorgeously bright, and the peaches by the
well as delicious and ripe. To these the city girl took
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readily, visiting them the last thing before retiring, while
Wilford found her there when he arose next morning,
her dress and slippers nearly spoiled with the heavy dew,
and her hands full of the fresh fruit which Aunt Betsy
knocked from the tree with a quilting rod; her dress
pinned around her waist, and disclosing a petticoat scrupulously
clean, but patched and mended with so many
different patterns and colors that the original ground
was lost, and none could tell whether it had been red or
black, buff or blue. Between Aunt Betsy and Bell the
most amicable feeling had existed ever since the older
lady had told the younger how all the summer long she
had been drying fruit, “thimble-berries, blue-bries, and
huckle-berries” for the soldiers, and how she was now
drying peaches for Willard Buxton—once their hired
man. These she should tie up in a salt bag, and put in
the next box sent by the society of which she seemed to
be head and front, “kind of fust directress” she said, and
Bell was interested at once, for among the soldiers down
by the Potomac was one who carried with him the whole
of Bell Cameron's heart; and who for a few days had
tarried at just such a dwelling as the farm-house, writing
back to her so pleasant descriptions of it, with its
fresh grass and shadowy trees, that she had longed to be
there too. So it was through this halo of romance and
love that Bell looked at the farm-house and its occupants,
preferring good Aunt Betsy because she seemed the most
interested in the soldiers, working as soon as breakfast
was over upon the peaches, and kindly furnishing her
best check apron, together with pan and knife for Bell,
who offered her assistance, notwithstanding Wilford's
warning that the fruit would stain her hands, and his
advice that she had better be putting up her things for
going home.
“She was not going that day,” she said, point blank,
and as Katy too had asked to stay a little longer, Wilford
was compelled to yield, and taking his hat sauntered off
toward Linwood; while Katy went listlessly into the
kitchen, where Bell Cameron sat, her tongue moving
much faster than her hands, which pared so slowly and
cut away so much of the juicy pulp, besides making so
frequent journeys to her mouth, that Auut Betsy looked
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in alarm at the rapidly disappearing fruit, wishing to herself
that “Miss Camern had not 'listed.”
But Miss Camern had enlisted, and so had Bob, or
rather he had gone to his duty, and as she worked, she
repeated to Helen the particulars of his going, telling
how, when the war first broke out, and Sumter was bombarded,
Bob, who, from long association with Southern
men at West Point, had imbibed many of their ideas, was
very sympathetic with the rebelling States, gaining the
cognomen of a secessionist, and once actually thinking of
casting in his lot with that side rather than the other.
But a little incident saved him, she said. The remembrance
of a queer old lady whom he met in the cars, and
who, at parting, held her wrinkled hand above his head
in benediction, charging him not to go against the flag,
and promising her prayers for his safety if found on the
side of the Union.
“I wish you could hear Bob tell the story, the funny
part I mean,” she continued, narrating as well as she could
the particulars of Lieutenant Bob's meeting with Aunt
Betsy, who, as the story progressed and she recognized
herself in the queer old Yankee woman, who shook hands
with the conductor and was going to law about a sheep
pasture, dropped her head lower and lower over her pan
of peaches, while a scarlet flush spread itself all over her
thin face, but changed to a grayish white as Bell concluded
with “Bob says the memory of that hand lifted above
his head haunted him day and night, during the period of
his uncertainty, and was at last the means of saving him
from treachery to his country.”
“Thank God!” came involuntarily from Aunt Betsy's
quivering lips, and, looking up, Bell saw the great tears
running down her cheeks, tears which she wiped away
with her arm, while she said faintly, “That old woman,
who made a fool of herself in the cars, was me!”
“You, Miss Barlow, you!” Bell exclaimed, forgetting
in her astonishment to carry to her mouth the luscious
half peach she had intended for that purpose, and dropping
it untasted into the pan, while Katy, who had been
listening with considerable interest, came quickly forward
saying, “You, Aunt Betsy! when were you in New York,
and why did I never know it?”
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It could not be kept back and, unmindful of Bell, Helen
explained to Katy as well as she could the circumstances
of Aunt Betsy's visit to New York the previous winter.
“And she never let me know it, or come to see me, because—
because—” Katy hesitated, and looked at Bell,
who said, pertly, “Because Will is so abominably proud,
and would have made such a fuss. Don't spoil a story for
relation's, sake, I beg,” and the young lady laughed good
humoredly, restoring peace to all save Katy, whose face
wore a troubled look, and who soon stole away to her mother,
whom she questioned further with regard to a
circumstance which seemed so mysterious to her.
“Miss Barlow,” Bell said, when Katy was gone, “you
will forgive me for repeating that story as I did. Of
course I had no idea it was you of whom I was talking.”
Bell was very earnest, and her eyes looked pleadingly
upon Aunt Betsy, who answered her back, “There's
nothing to forgive. You only told the truth. I did
make an old fool of myself, but if I helped that boy to a
right decision, my journey did some good, and I ain't
sorry now if I did go to the play-house. I confessed
that to the sewing circle, and Mrs. Deacon Bannister
hain't seemed the same towards me since, but I don't
care. I beat her on the election to first directress of
the Soldier's Aid. She didn't run half as well as me,
That chap—you called Bob—is he anything to you? Is
he your beau?”
“It was Bell's turn now to blush and then grow white,
while Helen, lightly touching the superb diamond on her
first finger, said, “That indicates as much. When did it
happen, Bell?”
Mrs. Cameron had said they were not a family to bruit
their affairs abroad, and if so, Bell was not like her family,
for she answered frankly, “Just before he went away.
It's a splendid diamond, isn't it?” and she held it up for
Helen to inspect.
The basket was empty by this time, and as Aunt Betsy
went to fill it from the trees, Bell and Helen were left
alone, and the former continued in a low, sad tone, “I've
been so sorry sometimes that I did not tell Bob I loved
him, when he wished me to so much.”
“Not tell him you loved him! How then could you
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tell him yes, as it appears you did?” Helen asked, and
Bell answered, “I could not well help that; it came so
sudden and he begged so hard, saying my promise would
make him a better man, a better soldier and all that. It
was the very night before he went, and so I said that out
of pity and patriotism I would give the promise, and I did;
but it seemed too much for a woman to tell a man all at
once that she loved him, and I wouldn't do it, but I've
been sorry since; oh, so sorry, during the two days when
we heard nothing from him after that dreadful battle at
Bull Run. We knew he was in it, and I thought I should
die until his telegram came saying he was safe. I did sit
down then and commence a letter, confessing all, but I
tore it up, and he don't know now just how I feel.”
“And do you really love him?” Helen asked, puzzled
by this strange girl, who laughingly held up her soft,
white hand, stained and blackened with the juice of the
fruit she had been paring, and said, “Do you suppose I
would spoil my hands like that, and incur ma chère mamma's
displeasure, if Bob were not in the army and I did
not care for him? And now allow me to catechise you.
Did Mark Ray ever propose and you refuse him?”
“Never!” and Helen's face grew crimson, while Bell
continued: “That is funny. Half our circle think so,
though how the impression was first given I do not know.
Mother told me, but would not tell where she received
her information. I heard of it again in a few days, and
have reason to believe that Mrs. Banker knows it too, and
feels a little uncomfortable that her son should be refused
when she considers him worthy of the Empress herself.”
Helen was very white, as she asked, “And how with
Mark and Juno?”
“Oh, there is nothing between them,” Bell replied.
“Mark has scarcely called on us since he returned from
Washington with his regiment. You are certain you
never cared for him?”
This was so abrupt, and Bell's eyes were so searching
that Helen grew giddy for a moment, and grasped the
back of the chair, as she replied: “I did not say I never
cared for him. I said he never proposed; and that is
true; he never did.”
“And if he had?” Bell continued, never taking her
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eyes from Helen, who, had she been less agitated, would
have denied Bell's right to question her so closely. Now,
however, she answered blindly, “I do not know. I cannot
tell. I thought him engaged to Juno.”
“Well, if that is not the rarest case of cross-purposes
that I ever knew,” Bell said, wiping her hands upon Aunt
Betsy's apron, and preparing to attack the piled up basket
just brought in.
Farther conversation was impossible, and, with her
mind in a perfect tempest of thought, Helen went away,
trying to decide what it was best for her to do. Some
one had spread the report that she had refused Mark Ray,
telling of the refusal of course, or how else could it have
been known? and this accounted for Mrs. Banker's long
continued silence. Since Helen's return to Silverton
Mrs. Banker had written two or three kind, friendly letters,
which did her so much good; but these had suddenly
ceased, and Helen's last remained unanswered.
She saw the reason now, every nerve quivering with pain
as she imagined what Mrs. Banker must think of one who
could make a refusal public, or what was tenfold worse,
pretend to an offer she never received. “She must despise
me, and Mark Ray, too, if he has heard of it,” she
said, resolving one moment to ask Bell to explain to Mrs.
Banker, and then changing her mind and concluding to
let matters take their course, inasmuch as interference
from her might be construed by the mother into undue
interest in the son. “Perhaps Bell will do it without
my asking,” she thought, and this hope did much toward
keeping her spirits up on that last day of Katy's stay at
home, for she was going back in the morning.
They did not see Marian Hazelton again, and Katy
wondered at it, deciding that in some things Marian was
very peculiar, while Wilford and Bell were disappointed,
as both had a desire to meet and converse with one who
had been so like a second mother to the little dead Genevra.
Wilford spoke of his child now as Genevra, but to
Katy it was Baby still; and, with choking sobs and passionate
tears, she bade good-bye to the little mound
underneath which it was lying, and then went back to
New York.
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CHAPTER XXXII. THE FIRST WIFE.
[figure description] Page 279.[end figure description]
KATY was very unhappy in her city home, and the
world, as she looked upon it, seemed utterly cheerless.
For much of this unhappiness Wilford was
himself to blame. After the first few days, during which
he was all kindness and devotion, he did not try to comfort
her, but seemed irritated that she should mourn so
deeply for the child which, but for her indiscretion, might
have been living still. He did not like staying at home,
and their evenings, when they were alone, passed in
gloomy silence. At last Mrs. Cameron brought her influence
to bear upon her daughter-in-law, trying to rouse
her to something like her olden interst in the world;
but all to no effect, and matters grew constantly worse,
as Wilford thought Katy unreasonable and selfish, while
Katy tried hard not to think him harsh in his judgment
of her, and exacting in his requirements. “Perhaps she
was the one most in fault; it could not be pleasant for
him to see her so entirely changed from what she used to
be,” she thought, one morning late in November, when
her husband had just left her with an angry frown upon
his face and reproachful words upon his lips.
Father Cameron and his daughters were out of town,
and Mrs. Cameron, had asked Wilford and Katy to dine
with her. But Katy did not wish to go, and Wilford had
left her in anger, saying “she could suit herself, but he
should go at all events.”
Left alone, Katy began to feel that she had done wrong
in declining the invitation. Surely she could go there,
and the echo of the bang with which Wilford had closed
the street door was still vibrating in her ear, when her
resolution began to give way, and while Wilford was
riding moodily down town, thinking harsh things against
her, she was meditating what she thought might be an
agreeable surprise. She would go round and meet him
at dinner, trying to appear as much like her old self as
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she could, and so atone for anything which had hitherto
been wrong in her demeanor.
Later in the day Esther was sent for to arrange her
mistress's hair, as she had not arranged it since baby
died. Wilford had been annoyed by the smooth bands
combed so plainly back, and at the blackness of the dress,
but now there was a change, and graceful curls fell about
the face, giving it the girlish expression which Wilford
liked. The soberness of the dark dress was relieved by
simple folds of white crape at the throat and wrists, while
the handsome jet ornaments, the gift of Wilford's father,
added to the style and beauty of the childish figure,
which had seldom looked lovelier than when ready and
waiting for the carriage. At the door there was a ring,
and Esther brought a note to Katy, who read as follows:
Dear Katy:—I have been suddenly called to leave the city on
business, which will probably detain me for three days or more, and
as I must go on the night train, I wish Esther to have my portmanteau
ready with whatever I may need for the journey. As I proposed
this morning, I shall dine with mother, but come home
immediately after dinner.
W. Cameron.
Katy was glad now that she had decided to meet him
at his mother's, as the knowing she had pleased him
would make the time of his absence more endurable, and
after seeing that everything was ready for him she stepped
with a comparatively light heart into her carriage, and
was driven to No. — Fifth Avenue.
Mrs. Cameron was out, the servant said, but was expected
every minute with Mr. Wilford.
“Never mind,” Katy answered; “I want to surprise
them, so please don't tell them I am here when you let
them in,” and going into the library she sat down before
the grate, waiting rather impatiently until the door-bell
rang and she heard both Wilford's and Mrs. Cameron's
voices in the hall.
Contrary to her expectations, they did not come into
the library, but went into the parlor, the door of which
was partially ajar, so that every word they said could be
distinctly heard where Katy sat. It would seem that
they were continuing a conversation which had been
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interrupted by their arriving home, for Mrs. Cameron said,
with the tone she always assumed when sympathizing
with her son. “Is she never more cheerful than when I
have seen her?”
“Never,” and Katy could feel just how Wilford's lips
shut over his teeth as he said it; “never more cheerful,
but worse if anything. Why, positively the house seems
so like a funeral that I hate to leave the office and go
back to it at night, knowing how mopish and gloomy
Katy will be.”
“My poor boy, it is worse than I feared,” Mrs. Cameron
said, with a little sigh, while Katy, with a great
gasping sob, tried to rise and go to them, to tell them
she was there—the mopish Katy, who made her home
so like a funeral to her husband.
But her limbs refused to move, and she sank back
powerless in her chair, compelled to listen to things
which no true husband would ever say to a mother of
his wife, especially when that wife's error consisted principally
in mourning for the child “which but for her imprudence
might have been living then.” These were
Wilford's very words, and though Katy had once expected
him to say them, they came upon her now with a
dreadful shock, making her view herself as the murderer
of her child, and thus blunting the pain she might otherwise
have felt as he went on to speak of Silverton and
its inhabitants just as he would not have spoken had he
known she was so near. Then, encouraged by his mother,
he talked again of her in a way which made her poor aching
heart throb as she whispered, sadly, “He is disappointed
in me. I do not come up to all that he expected.
I do very well, considering my low origin, but I am not
what his wife should be.”
Wilford had not said all this, but Katy inferred it,
and every nerve quivered with anguish as the wild wish
came over her that she had died on that day when she
sat in the summer grass at home waiting for Wilford
Cameron. Poor Katy! she thought her cup of sorrow
full, when, alas! only a drop had as yet been poured into
it. But it was filling fast, and Mrs. Cameron's words,
“It might have been better with Genevra,” was the
first outpouring of the overwhelming torrent which for
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a moment bore her life and sense away. She thought
they meant her baby—the little Genevra sleeping under
the snow in Silverton—and her white lips answered,
“Yes, it would be better,” before Wilford's voice was
heard, saying, as he always said, “No, I have never
wished Genevra in Katy's place; though I have sometimes
wondered what the result would have been had I
learned in season how much I wronged her.”
Was heaven and earth coming together, or what made
Katy's brain so dizzy and the room so dark, as, with head
bent forward and lips apart, she strained her ear to
catch every word of the conversation which followed,
and in which she saw glimpses of that leaf offered her
once to read, and from which she had promised not to
shrink should it ever be thrust upon her? But she did
shrink, oh! so shudderingly, holding up her hands and
striking them through the empty air as if she would
thrust aside the terrible spectre risen so suddenly before
her. She had heard all that she cared to hear then.
Another word and she should surely die where she was,
within hearing of the voices still talking of Genevra.
Stopping her ears to shut out the dreadful sound, she
tried to think what she should do. To gain the door
and reach the street was her desire, and throwing on
her wrappings she went noiselessly into the hall, and
carefully turning the lock and closing the door behind her,
she found herself alone in the street in the dusk of a
November night. But Katy was not afraid, and drawing
her hood closely over her face she sped on until her
own house was reached, alarming Esther with her frightened
face, but explaining that she had been taken suddenly
ill and returned before dinner.
“Mr. Cameron will be here soon,” she said. “I do
not need anything to-night, so you can leave me alone
and go where you like—to the theatre, if you choose. I
heard you say you wished to go. Here is the money
for you and Phillips,” and handing a bill to the puzzled
Esther, she dismissed her from the room.
Meanwhile, at the elder Cameron's, no one had a suspicion
of Katy's recent presence, for the girl who had
admitted her had gone to visit a sick sister, with whom
she was to spend the night. Thus Katy's secret was
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safe, and Wilford, when at last he bade his mother good-bye
and started for home, was not prepared for the
livid face, the bloodshot eyes, and the strange, unnatural
look which met him at the threshold.
Katy answered his ring herself, her hands grasping
his fiercely, and dragging him up the stairs to her own
room, where, more like a maniac than Katy Cameron, she
confronted him with the startling question,
“Who is Genevra Lambert? It is time I knew before
committing greater sin. Tell me, Wilford, who is she?”
She was standing before him, her slight figure seeming
to expand into a greater height, the features glowing
with strong excitement, and her hot breath coming
hurriedly through her dilated nostrils, but never opening
the pale lips set so firmly together. There was
something terrible in her look and attitude, and it
startled Wilford, who recoiled a moment from her,
scarcely able to recognize the Katy hitherto so gentle
and quiet. She had learned his secret, but the facts
must have been distorted, he knew, or she had never
been so agitated. From beneath his hair the great
sweat-drops came pouring, as he tried to approach her
and take the uplifted hands, motioning him aside with
the words, “Not touch me; no, not touch me till you
have told me who is Genevra Lambert.”
She repeated the question twice, and rallying all his
strength Wilford answered her at last, “Genevra Lambert
was my wife!”
“I thought so,” and the next moment Katy lay in
Wilford's arms, dead, as he feared, for there was no motion
about the eyelids, no motion that he could perceive
about the pulse or heart, as he laid the rigid form upon
the bed and then bent every energy to restore her, even
though he feared that it was hopeless.
If possible he would prefer that no one should intrude
upon them now, and he chafed her icy hands and bathed
her face until the eyes unclosed again, but with a
shudder turned away as they met his. Then, as she
grew stronger and remembered the past, she started up,
exclaiming, “If Genevra Lambert is your wife, what
then am I? Oh, Wilford, how could you make me not a
wife, when I trusted and loved you so much?”
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He knew she was laboring under a mistake, and he
did not wonder at the violence of her emotions if she believed
he had wronged her so cruelly, and coming nearer
to her he said, “Genevra Lambert was my wife once,
but is not now, for she is dead. Do you hear me, Katy?
Genevra died years ago, when you were a little girl playing
in the fields at home.”
By mentioning Silverton, he hoped to bring back
something of her olden look, in place of the expression
which troubled and frightened him. The experiment
was successful, and great tears gathered in Katy's eyes,
washing out the wild, unnatural gleam, while the lips
whispered, “And it was her picture Juno saw. She told
me the night I came, and I tried to question you. You
remember?”
Wilford did remember it, and he replied, “Yes, but I
did not suppose you knew I had a picture. You have
been a good wife, Katy, never to mention it since then;”
and he tried to kiss her forehead, but she covered it
with her hands, saying sadly, “Not yet, Wilford, I cannot
bear it now. I must know the whole about Genevra.
Why didn't you tell me before? Why have you
deceived me so?”
“Katy,” and Wilford grew very earnest in his attempts
to defend himself, “do you remember that day we sat
under the buttonwood tree, and you promised to be
mine? Try and recall the incidents of that hour and
see if I did not hint at some things in the past which I
wished had been otherwise, and did not offer to show you
the blackest page of my whole life, but you would not see
it. Was that so, Katy?”
“Yes,” she answered, and he continued: “You said
you were satisfied to take me as I was. You would
not hear evil against me, and so I acquiesced, bidding
you not shrink back if ever the time should come when
you must read that page. I was to blame, I know, but
there were many extenuating circumstances, much to
excuse me for withholding what you would not hear.”
Wilford did not like to be censured, neither did he
like to censure himself, and now that Katy was out of
danger and comparatively calm, he began to build about
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himself a fortress of excuses for having kept from her
the secret of his life.
“When did you hear of Genevra?” he asked.
Katy told him when and how she heard the story, and
then added, “Oh, Wilford, why did you keep it from me?
What was there about it wrong, and where is she
buried?”
“In Alnwick, at St. Mary's,” Wilford answered, determining
now to hold nothing back, and by his abruptness
wounding Katy afresh.
“In Alnwick, at St. Mary's,” Katy cried. “Then I
have seen her grave, and that is why you were so anxious
to get there—so unwilling to go away. Oh, if I were lying
there instead of Genevra, it would be so much better, so
much better.”
Katy was sobbing now, in a moaning, plaintive way,
which touched Wilford tenderly, and smoothing her
tangled hair, he said, “I would not exchange my Katy
for all the Genevras in the world. She was never as dear
to me as you. I was but a boy, and did not know my
mind, when I met her. Shall I tell you about her now?
Can you bear to hear the story of Genevra?”
There was a nod of assent, and Katy turned her face to
the wall, clasping her hands tightly together, while Wilford
drew his chair to her side and began to read the
page he should have read to her long before.
CHAPTER XXXIII. WHAT THE PAGE DISCLOSED.
I WAS little more than nineteen years of age when
I left Harvard College and went abroad with my
only brother, the John or Jack of whom you have
so often heard. Both himself and wife were in
delicate health, and it was hoped a voyage across the sea
would do them good. For nearly a year we were in
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various parts of England, stopping for two months at Brighton,
where, among the visitors, was a widow from the
vicinity of Alnwick, and with her an orphan niece, whose
dazzling beauty attracted my youthful fancy. She was
not happy with her aunt, upon whom she was wholly dependent,
and my sympathies were all enlisted, when, with
the tears shining in her lustrous eyes, she one day accidentally
stumbled upon her trouble and told me how
wretched she was, asking if in America there was not
something for her to do.
“It was at this time that Jamie was born, and Mary,
the girl who went out with us, was married to an Englishman,
making it necessary for Hatty to find some one to
take her place. Hearing of this, Genevra came one day,
and offered herself as half companion, half waiting-maid
to Hatty. Anything was preferable to the life she led,
she said, pleading so hard that Hatty, after an interview
with the old aunt—a purse-proud, vulgar woman, who
seemed glad to be rid of her charge—consented to receive
her, and Genevra became one of our family, an equal
rather than a menial, whom Hatty treated with as much
consideration as if she had been a sister. I wish I could
tell you how beautiful Genevra Lambert was at that
period of her life, with her brilliant English complexion,
her eyes so full of poetry and passion, her perfect features,
and, more than all, the wondrous smile, which would
have made a plain face handsome.
“Of course I came to love her, and loved her all the
more for the opposition I knew my family would throw
in the way of my marrying the daughter of an English
apothecary, and one who was voluntarily filling a servant's
place. But with my mother across the sea, I could
do anything; and when Genevra told me of a base fellow,
who, since she was a child, had sought her for his wife,
and still pursued her with his letters, my passions were
roused, and I offered myself at once. Her answer was a
decided refusal. She knew her position, she said, and
she knew mine, just as she knew the nature of the feeling
which prompted me to act thus toward her. Although
just my age, she was older in judgment and experience,
and she seemed to understand the difference between our
relative positions. I was not indifferent to her, she said,
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and were she my equal her answer might be otherwise
than the decided no.
“Madly in love, and fancying I could not live without
her, I besieged her with letters, some of which she returned
unopened, while on others she wrote a few hurried
lines, calling me a boy, who did not know my own
mind, and asking what my friends would say.
“I cared little for friends, and urged my suit the more
vehemently, as we were about going into Scotland, where
our marriage could be celebrated in private at any time.
I did not contemplate making the affair public at once.
That would take from the interest and romance, while,
unknown to myself, there was at heart a fear of my
family.
“But not to dwell too long upon those days, which
seem to me now like a dream, we went to Scotland and
were married privately, for I won her to this at last.
“My brother's failing health, as well as Hatty's, prevented
them from suspecting what was going on, and
when at last we went to Italy they had no idea that Genevra
was my wife. At Rome her beautiful face attracted
much attention from tourists and residents, among whom
were a few young men, who, looking upon her as Jamie's
nurse, or at most a companion for his mother, made no
attempt to disguise their admiration. For this I had no
redress except in an open avowal of the relation in which
I stood to her, and this I could not then do, for the longer
it was deferred the harder I found it to acknowledge her
my wife. I loved her devotedly, and that perhaps was one
great cause of the jealousy which began to spring up and
embitter my life.
“I do not now believe that Genevra was at heart a
coquette. She was very fond of admiration, but when
she saw how much I was disturbed she made an effort to
avoid those who flattered her, but her manner was unfortunate,
while her voice—the sweetest I ever heard—was
calculated to invite rather than repel attention. As the
empress of the world, she would have won and kept the
homage of mankind, from the humblest beggar in the
street to the king upon the throne, and had I been older
I should have been proud of what then was my greatest
annoyance. But I was a mere boy—and I watched her
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jealously, until a new element of disquiet was presented
to me in the shape of a ruffianly looking fellow, who was
frequently seen about the premises, and with whom I
once found Genevra in close converse, starting and blushing
guiltily when I came upon her, while her companion
went swiftly from my sight.
“It was an old English acquaintance, who was poor
and asking charity,” she said, when questioned, but her
manner led me to think there was something wrong,
particularly as I saw her with him again, and thought
she held his hand.
“It was evident that my brother would never see
America again, and at his request my mother came to us,
in company with a family from Boston, reaching us two
weeks before he died. From the first she disliked Genevra,
and suspected the liking between us, but never dreaming
of the truth until a week after Jack's death, when in
a fit of anger at Genevra for listening to an English artist,
who had asked to paint her picture, the story of the
marriage came out, and like a child dependent on its
mother for advice, I asked, `What shall I do?'
“You know mother, and can in part understand how
she would scorn a girl who, though born to better things,
was still found in the capacity of a waiting-maid. I never
saw her so moved as she was for a time, after learning
that her only living son, from whom she expected so much,
had thrown himself away, as she expressed it. Sister
Hatty, who loved Genevra, did all she could to heal the
growing difference between us, but I trusted mother
most. I believed that what she said was right, and so
matters grew worse, until one night, the last we spent in
Rome, I missed Genevra from our rooms, and starting in
quest of her, found her, in a little flower garden back of
our dwelling. There, under the deep shadow of a tree,
and partly concealed from view, she stood with her arm
around the neck of the same rough-looking man who had
been there before. She did not see me as I watched her
while she parted with him, suffering him to kiss her hand
and forehead as he said, “Good-bye, my darling.”
“In a tremor of anger and excitement I quitted the
spot, my mind wholly made up with regard to my future.
That there was something wrong about Genevra I did
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not doubt, and I would not give her a chance to explain
by telling her what I had seen, but sent her back to England,
giving her ample means for defraying the expenses
of her journey and for living in comfort after her arrival
there. From Rome we went to Naples, and then to
Switzerland, where Hatty died, leaving us alone with
little Jamie. It was at Berne that I received an
anonymous letter from England, the writer stating that
Genevra was with her aunt, that the whole had ended as
he thought it would, that he could readily guess at the
nature of the trouble, and hinting that if a divorce was
desirable on my return to England, all necessary proof
could be obtained by applying to such a number in London,
the writer announcing himself a brother of the man
who had once sought Genevra, and saying he had
always opposed the match, knowing Genevra's family.
“This was the first time the idea of a divorce had
entered my mind, and I shrank from a final separation.
But mother felt differently. It was not a new thought
to her, knowing as she did that the validity of a Scotch
marriage, such as ours, was frequently contested in the
English Courts. Once free from Genevra the world this
side the water would never know of that mistake, and
she set herself steadily to accomplish her purpose. To
tell you all that followed our return to England, and the
steps by which I was brought to sue for a divorce, would
make my story too long, and so I will only state that,
chiefly by the testimony of the anonymous letter-writer,
whose acquaintance we made, a divorce was obtained,
Genevra putting in no defence, but, as I heard afterwards,
settling down into an apathy from which nothing
had power to rouse her until the news of her freedom
from me was carried to her, when, amid a paroxysm of
tears and sobs, she wrote me a few lines, assuring me of
her innocence, refusing to send back her wedding ring,
and saying God would not forgive me for the great
wrong I had done her. I saw her once after that by
appointment, and her face haunted me for years, for, Katy,
Genevra was innocent, as I found after the time was past
when reparation could be made.”
Wilford's voice trembled, and for a moment there was
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silence in the room, while he composed himself to go on
with the story:
“She would not live with me again if she could, she
said, denouncing bitterly the Cameron pride, and saying
she was happier to be free; and there we parted, but
not until she told me that her traducer was the old discarded
suitor who had sworn to have revenge, and who,
since the divorce, had dared seek her again. A vague
suspicion of this had crossed my mind once before, but
the die was cast, and even if the man were false, what I
saw myself in Rome still stood against her, and so my
conscience was quieted, while mother was more than
glad to be rid of a daughter-in-law of whose family I
knew nothing. Rumors I did hear of a cousin whose
character was not the best, and of the father who for
some crime had fled the country, and died in a foreign
land, but as that was nothing to me now, I passed it by,
feeling it was best to be released from one of so doubtful
antecedents.
“In the spring of 185- we came back to New York,
where no one had ever heard of the affair, so quietly
had it been managed. I was still an unmarried man to the
world, as no one but my mother knew my secret. With
her I often talked of Genevra, wishing sometimes that I
could hear from her, a wish which was finally gratified.
One day I received a note requesting an interview at a
down town hotel, the writer signing himself as Thomas
Lambert, and adding that I need have no fears, as he came
to perform an act of justice, not of retribution. Three
hours later I was locked in a room with Genevra's father,
the same man whom I had seen in Rome. Detected in forgery
years before, he had fled from England and had
hidden himself in Rome, where he accidentally met his
daughter, and so that stain was removed. He had
heard of the divorce by a letter which Genevra managed
to send him, and braving all difficulties and dangers he
had come back to England and found his child, hearing
from her the story of her wrongs, and as well as he was
able setting himself to discover the author of the calumny.
He was not long in tracing it to Le Roy, Genevra's
former sister, whom he found in a dying condition, and
who with his last breath confessed the falsehood which
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was imposed upon me, he said, partly from motives of
revenge, and partly with a hope that free from me,
Genevra would at the last turn to him. As proof that
Mr. Lambert told me truth, he brought the dying man's
confession, written in a cramped, trembling hand,
which I recognized at once. The confession ended
with the solemn assertion, `For aught I know or believe,
Genevra Lambert is as pure and true as any woman
living.'
“I cannot describe the effect this had upon me. I
did not love Genevra then. I had out-lived that affection,
but I felt remorse and pity for having wronged her,
and asked how I could make amends.
“`You cannot,' the old man said, `except in one way,
and that she does not desire. I did not come here with
any wish for you to take her for your wife again. It
was an unequal match which never should have been;
but if you believe her innocent, she will be satisfied.
She wanted you to know it—I wanted you to know it,
and so I crossed the sea to find you,”
The next I heard of her was in the columns of an
English newspaper, which told me she was dead, while
in another place a pencil mark was lightly traced around
a paragraph, which said that `a forger, Thomas Lambert,
who escaped years ago and was supposed to be
dead, had recently reappeared in England, where he was
recognized, but not arrested, for the illness which proved
fatal. He was attended,' the paper said, `by his daughter,
a beautiful young girl, whose modest mien and gentle
manner had done much towards keeping the officers
of justice from her dying father, no one being able to withstand
her pleadings that her father might die in peace.'
“I was grateful for this tribute to Genevra, for I felt that
it was deserved; and I turned again to the notice of her
death, which must have occurred within a short time of
her father's, and was probably induced by past troubles
and recent anxiety for him.
“Genevra Lambert died at Alnwick, aged 22. There
could be no mistake, and with a tear to the memory of
the dead whom I had loved and injured, I burned the
paper, feeling that now there was no clue to the secret I
was as anxious to preserve as was my mother.
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“And so the years wore on till I met and married
you, withholding from you that yours was not the first
love which had stirred my heart. I meant to tell you,
Katy, but I could not for the great fear of losing you if
you knew all. And then an error concealed so long is
hard to be confessed. I took you across the sea to
Brighton, where I first met Genevra, and then to Alnwick,
seeking out the grave which made assurance
doubly sure. It was natural that I should make some
inquiries concerning her last days; I questioned the
old sexton who was at work near by. Calling his attention
to the name, I said it was an uncommon one and
asked if he knew the girl.
“`Not by sight, no,' he said. `She was only here a
few days before she died. I've heard she was very winsome
and that there was a scandal of some kind mixed
up with her.'
“I would not ask him any more; and without any
wrong to you, I confess that my tears dropped upon the
turf under which I knew Genevra lay.”
“I am glad they did; I should hate you if you had not
cried,” Katy exclaimed, her voice more natural than it
had been since the great shock came.
“Do you forgive me, Katy? Do you love me as well
as ever?” Wilford asked, stooping down to kiss her, but
Katy drew her face away and would not answer then.
She did not know herself how she felt towards him.
He did not seem just like the husband she had trusted in
so blindly. It would take a long time to forget that another
head than hers had lain upon his bosom, and it would
take longer yet to blot out the memory of complaining
words uttered to his mother. She had never thought he
could do that, never dreamed of such a thing, knowing
that she would sooner have parted with her right hand
than complained of him. Her idol had fallen in more respects
than one, and the heart it had bruised in the fall
refused at once to gather the shattered pieces up and call
them as good as new. She was not so obstinate as Wilford
began to fancy. She was only stunned and could not
rally at his bidding. He confessed the whole, keeping
nothing back, and he felt that Katy was unjust not to acknowledge
his magnanimity and restore him to her favor.
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Again he asked forgiveness, and bent down to kiss her,
but Katy answered, “Not yet, Wilford, not till I feel all
right towards you. A wife's kiss should be sincre.”
“As you like,” trembled on Wilford's lips, but he beat
back the words and walked up and down the room,
knowing now that his journey must be deferred till morning,
and wondering if Katy would hold out till then.
It was long past midnight, but to retire was impossible,
and so for one whole hour he paced through the room,
while Katy lay with her eyes closed and her lips moving
occasionally in words of prayer she tried to say, asking
God to help her, and praying that she might in future
lay her treasures up where they could not so suddenly be
swept away. Wearily the hours passed, and the grey
dawn was stealing into the room when Wilford again approached
his wife and said, “You know I was to have left
home last night on business. As I did not go then it is
necessary that I leave this morning. Are you able to
stay alone for three days more? Are you willing?”
“Yes—oh yes,” Katy replied, feeling that to have him
gone while she battled with the pain lying so heavy at
her heart, would be a great relief.
Perhaps he suspected this feeling in part, for he bit his
lip impatiently, and without another word called up the
servant whose duty it was to prepare his breakfast. Cold
and cheerless seemed the dining-room, to which an hour
later he repaired, and tasteless was the breakfast without
Katy there to share it. She had been absent many times
before, but never just as now, with this wide gulf between
them, and as he broke his egg and tried to drink his coffee,
Wilford felt like one from whom every support had
been swept away. He did not like the look on Katy's face
or the sound of her voice, and as he thought upon them,
self began to whisper again that she had no right to stand
out so long when he had confessed everything, and by
the time his breakfast was finished, Wilford Cameron
was, in his own estimation, an abused and injured man,
so that it was with an air of defiance rather than humility
that he went again to Katy. She, too, had been thinking,
and as the result of her thoughts she lifted up her head
as he came in and said, “I can kiss you now, Wilford.”
It was human nature, we suppose—at least it was
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Wilford's nature—which for an instant tempted him to decline
the kiss proffered so lovingly; but Katy's face was
more than he could withstand, and when again he left
that room the kiss of pardon was upon his lips and comparative
quiet was in his heart.
“The picture, Wilford,—please bring me the picture,
I want to see it,” Katy called after him, as he was running
down the stairs.
Wilford would not refuse, and hastily unlocking his
private drawer he carried the case to Katy's room, saying
to her, “I would not mind it now. Try and sleep awhile.
You need the rest so much.”
Katy knew she had the whole day before her, and so she
nestled down among her pillows and soon fell into a
quiet sleep, from which Esther at last awakened her, asking
if she should bring her breakfast to her room.
“Yes, do,” Katy replied, adjusting her dress and trying
to arrange the matted curls, which were finally confined
in a net until Esther's more practiced hands were ready
to attack them, then sending Esther from the room Katy
took the picture of Genevra from the table where Wilford
had laid it.
CHAPTER XXXIV. THE EFFECT.
VERY cautiously the lid was opened, and a lock of
soft brown hair fell out, clinging to Katy's hand
and making her shudder as she shook off the silken
trees and remembered that the head it once
adorned was lying in St. Mary's churchyard, where the
English daisies grew.
“She had pretty hair,” she thought; “darker, richer
than mine,” and into Katy's heart there crept a feeling
akin to jealousy, lest Genevra had been fairer than herself,
as well as better loved. “I won't be foolish any
longer,” she said, and turning resolutely to the light, she
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opened the lid again and saw Genevra Lambert, starting
quickly, then looking again more closely—then, with a
gasp, panting for breath, while like lightning flashes the
past came rushing over her, as, with her eyes fixed upon
that picture, she tried to whisper, “It is—it is!”
She could not then say whom, for if she were right in
her belief, Genevra was not dead. There were no daisies
growing on her grave, for she still walked the earth a
living woman, whom Katy knew so well—Marian Hazelton.
That was the name Katy could not speak, as, with
the blood curdling in her veins and freezing about her
heart, she sat comparing the face she remembered so
well with the one before her. In some points they were
unlike, for thirteen years had slightly marred the youthful
contour of the face she knew once—had sharpened the
features and thinned the abundant hair; but still there
could be no mistake. The eyes, the brow, the smile, the
nose, all were the same, and with a pang bitterer than
she yet had felt, poor Katy fell upon her face and asked
that she might die. In her utter ignorance of law, she
fancied that if Genevra were alive, she had no right to
Wilford's name—no right to be his wife—especially as
the sin for which Genevra was divorced had by her never
been committed, and burning tears of bitter shame ran
down her cheeks as she whispered, “`What God has
joined together let no man put asunder.' Those are
God's words, and how dare the world act otherwise?
She is his wife, and I—oh! I don't know what I am!”
and on the carpet where she was kneeling Katy writhed
in agony as she tried to think what she must do. Not
stay there—she could not do that now—not, at least, until
she knew for sure that she was Wilford's wife, in spite
of Genevra's living. “Oh, if there was only some one to
advise me—some one who knew and would tell me what
was right,” Katy moaned, feeling herself inadequate to
meet the dark hour alone.
But to whom should she go? To Father Cameron?
No, nor to his mother. They might counsel wrong for
the sake of secrecy. Would Mark Ray or Mrs. Banker
know? Perhaps; but they were strangers;—her trouble
must not be told to them, and then with a great bound
her heart turned at last to Morris. He knew
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everything. He would not sanction a wrong. He would tell
her just what was right, and she could trust him fully in
everything. There was no other person whom she
could believe just as she could him. Uncle Ephraim was
equally as good and conscientious, but he did not know
as much as Morris—he did not understand everything.
Morris was her refuge, and to him she would go that
very day, leaving a note for Wilford in case she never
came back, as possibly she might not. Had Marian
been in the city she would have gone to her at one, but
Marian was where long rows of cots were ranged against
the hospital walls, each holding a maimed and suffering
soldier, to whom she ministered so tenderly, the brightness
of her smile and the beauty of her face deluding
the delirious ones into the belief that the journey of life
for them was ended and heaven reached at last, where
an angel in woman's garb attended upon them. Marian
was impossible, and Dr. Grant was the only alternative
left.
But when she attempted to prepare for the journey
to Silverton, she found herself wholly inadequate
to the exertion. The terrible excitement through which
she had passed had exhausted her strength, and every
nerve was quivering, while spasms of pain darted through
her head, warning her that Silverton was impossible.
“I can telegraph and Morris will come,” she whispered,
and without pausing to think what the act might involve,
she wrote upon a slip of paper, “Cousin Morris,
come to me in the next train. I am in great trouble,
Katy.”
She would not add the Cameron. She had no right
to that name, she feared, and folding the paper, she
rang for Esther, bidding her give the telegram to the
boy Phil, with instructions to take it at once to the office
and see that it went immediately.
-- 297 -- p591-302
CHAPTER XXXV. THE INTERVIEW.
[figure description] Page 297.[end figure description]
DR. MORRIS was very tired, for his labors that
day had been unusually severe, and it was with a
feeling of comfort and relief that at an earlier
hour than usual, he had turned his steps homeward,
finding a bright fire waiting him in the library,
where his late dinner was soon brought by the housekeeper.
It was very pleasant in that cosy library of
oak and green, with the bright fire on the hearth, and
the smoking dinner set so temptingly before him. And
Morris felt the comfort of his home, thanking the God
who had given him all this, and chiding his wayward
heart that it had ever dared to repine. He was not repining
to-night, as with his hands crossed upon his
head he sat looking into the fire and watching the bits
of glowing anthracite dropping into the pan. He was
thinking of the sick-bed which he had visited last, and
how a faith in Jesus can make the humblest room like
the gate of Heaven; thinking how the woman's eyes had
sparkled when she told him of the other world, where
she would never know pain or hunger or cold again, and
how quickly their lustre was dimmed when she spoke of
her absent husband, the soldier to whom the news of
her death, with the child he had never seen, would be a
crushing blow.
“They who have neither wife nor child are the happier
perhaps,” he said; and then he thought of Katy and
her great sorrow when baby died, wondering if to spare
herself that pain she would rather baby had never been.
“No—oh, no,” he answered to his own inquiry. “She
would not lose the memory which comes from that little
grave for all the world contains. It is better once to
love and lose than not to love at all. In Heaven we
shall see and know why these things were permitted,
and marvel at the poor human nature which rebelled
against them.”
Just at this point of his soliloquy, the telegram was
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brought to him. “Come in the next train. I am in
great trouble.”
He read it many times, growing more and more perplexed
with each reading, and then trying to decide
what his better course would be. There were no
patients needing him that night, that he knew of; he
might perhaps go if there was yet time for the train
which passed at four o'clock. There was time, he
found, and telling Mrs. Hull that he had been suddenly
called to New York, he bade his boy bring out his horse
and take him at once to the depot. It was better to
leave no message for the deacon's family, as he did not
wish to alarm them unnecessarily. “I shall undoubtedly
be back to-morrow,” he thought, as he took his seat
in the car, wondering what could be the trouble which
had prompted that strange despatch.
It was nearly midnight when he reached the city, but
a light was shining from the windows of that house in
Madison Square, and Katy, who had never for a moment
doubted his coming, was waiting for him. But not in
the parlor; she was too sick now to go down there, and
when she heard his ring and his voice in the hall asking
for her, she bade Esther show him to her room. More
and more perplexed, Morris ran up to the room where
Katy lay, or rather crouched, upon the sofa, her eyes so
wild and her face so white that, in great alarm, Morris
took the cold hands she stretched feebly towards him,
and bending over her said, “What is it, Katy? Has anything
dreadful happened? and where is your husband?”
At the mention of her husband Katy shivered, and rising
from her crouching position, she pushed her hair
back from her forehead and replied, “Oh, Morris! I am
so wretched,—so full of pain! I have heard of something
which took my life away. I am not Wilford's wife,
for he had another before me,—a wife in Italy,—who is
not dead! And I, oh Morris! what am I? I knew you
would know just what I was, and I sent for you to tell
me and take me away from here, back to Silverton. Help
me, Morris! I am choking! I am—yes—I am—going to
faint!”
It was the first time Katy had put the great horror in
words addressed to another, and the act of doing so made
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it more appalling, and with a moan she sank back among
the pillows of the couch, while Morris tried to comprehend
the strange words he had heard, “I am not Wilford's
wife, for he had another before me,—a wife in Italy,—
who is not dead.”
Dr. Morris was thoroughly a man, and though much of
his sinful nature had been subdued, there was enough left
to make his heart rise and fall with great throbs of joy as
he thought of Katy free, even though that freedom were
bought at the expense of dire disgrace to others, and of
misery to her. But only for a moment did he feel thus—
only till he knelt beside the pallid face with the dark
rings beneath the eyes, and saw the faint, quivering motion
around the lips, which told that she was not wholly
unconscious.
“My poor little wounded bird,” he said, as pityingly as
if he had been her father, while much as a father might
kiss his suffering child, he kissed the forehead and the
eyelids where the tears began to gather.
Katy was not insensible, and the name by which he
called her, with the kisses that he gave, thawed the ice
around her heart and brought a flood of tears, which
Morris wiped away, lifting her gently up and pillowing
her hot head upon his arm, while she moaned like a weary
child.
“It rests me so just to see you, Morris. May I go
back with you, as your housekeeper, instead of mrs.
Hull;—that is, if I am not his wife? The world might
despise me, but you would know I was not to blame. I
should go nowhere but to the farm-house, to church, and
baby's grave. Poor baby! I am glad God gave her to
me, even if I am not Wilford's wife; and I am glad now
that she died.”
She was talking to herself rather than to Morris, who,
smoothing back her hair and chafing her cold hands,
said,
“My poor child, you have passed through some agitating
scene. Are you able now to tell me all about it,
and what you mean by another wife?”
There was a shiver, and the white lips grew still whiter
as Katy began her story, going back to St. Mary's churchyard,
and then coming to her first night in New York,
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when Juno had told her of a picture and asked her
whose it was. Then she told of Wilford's admission of
an earlier love, who, he said, was dead; of the trouble
about the baby's name, and his aversion to Genevra; but
when she approached the dinner at the elder Cameron's,
her lip quivered in a grieved kind of way as she remembered
what Wilford had said of her to his mother, but
she would not tell this to Morris,—it was not necessary
to her story,—and so she said, “They were talking of
what I ought never to have heard, and it seemed as if
the walls were closing me in so I could not move to let
them know I was there. I said to myself, `I shall go
mad after this,' and I thought of you all coming to see
me in the mad-house, your kind face, Morris, coming up
distinctly before me, just as it would look at me if I were
really crazed. But all this was swept away like a hurricane
when I heard the rest, the part about Genevra, Wilford's
other wife.”
Katy was panting for breath, but she went on with the
story, which made Morris clench his hands as he comprehended
the deceit which had been practiced so long.
Of course he did not look at it as Katy did, for he knew
that according to all civil law she was as really Wilford's
wife as if no other had existed, and he told her so, but
Katy shook her head. “He can't have two wives living.
and I tell you I knew the picture—Genevra is not dead,
I have seen her; I have talked with her,—Genevra is not
dead.”
“Granted that she is not,” Morris answered, “the divorce
remains the same.”
“I do not believe in divorces. Whom God hath joined
together let not man put asunder,” Katy said with an air
which implied that from this argument there could be no
appeal.
“That is the Scripture, I know,” Morris replied, “but
you must know that for one sin our Saviour permitted a
man to put away his wife, thus making it perfectly right.”
“But in Genevra's case the sin did not exist. She was
as innocent as I am, and that must make a difference.”
She was very earnest in her attempts to prove that Genevra
was still a lawful wife, so earnest that a dark suspicion
entered Morris's mind, finding vent in the
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question, “Katy, don't you love your husband, that you try
so hard to prove he is not yours?”
There were red spots all over Katy's face and neck as
she saw the meaning put upon her actions, and, covering
her face with her hands, she sobbed violently as she replied,
“I do, oh, yes, I do! I never loved any one else.”
I would have died for him once. May be I would die for
him now; but, Morris, he is disappointed in me. Our
tastes are not alike, and we made a great mistake, or Wilford
did when he took me for his wife. I was better
suited to most anybody else, and I have been so wicked
since, forgetting all the good I ever knew, forgetting
prayer save as I went through the form from old habit's
sake; forgetting God, who has punished me so sorely
that every nerve smarts with the stinging blows.”
Oh, how lovingly, how earnestly Morris talked to Katy
then, telling her of Him who smites but to heal, who
chastens not in anger, and would lead the lost one back
into the quiet fold where there was perfect peace.
And Katy, listening eagerly, with her great blue eyes
fixed upon his face, felt that to experience that of which
he talked, was worth more than all the world beside.
Gradually, too, there stole over her the rest she always
felt with him—the indescribable feeling which prompted
her to care for nothing except to do just what he bade
her do, knowing it was right; so when he said to her,
“You cannot go home with me, Katy; your duty is to
remain here in your husband's house,” she offered no remonstrance.
Indeed, Morris doubted if she fully understood
him, she looked so sick and appeared so strange.
“It is not safe for you to be alone. Esther must stay
with you,” he continued, feeling her rapid pulse and noticing
the alternate flushing and paling of her cheek.
A fever was coming on, he feared, and summoning
Esther to the room, he said,
“Your mistress is very sick. You must stay with her
till morning, and if she grows worse, let me know. I
shall be in the library.”
Then, with a few directions with regard to the medicine,
he fortunately had with him, he left the chamber,
and repaired to the library below, where he spent the
few remaining hours of the night, pondering on the
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strange story he had heard, and praying for poor Katy,
whose heart had been so sorely wounded.
The quick-witted Esther saw that something was
wrong, and traced it readily to Wilford, whose exacting
nature she thoroughly understood. She had not been
blind during the two years and a half she had been
Katy's maid, and no impatient word of Wilford's, or frown
upon his face, had escaped her when occurring in her
presence, while Katy's uniform sweetness and entire
submission to his will had been noted as well, so that in
Esther's opinion Wilford was a domestic tyrant, and
Katy was an angel. Numerous were her conjectures as
to the cause of the present trouble, which must be something
serious, or Katy had never telegraphed for Dr.
Grant, as she felt certain she had.
“Whatever it is, I'll stand her friend,” she said, as she
bent over her young mistress, who was talking of Genevra
and the grave at St. Mary's, which was no grave at all.
She was growing worse very rapidly, and frightened at
last at the wildness of her eyes, and her constant ravings,
Esther went down to Morris, and bade him come
quickly to Mrs. Cameron.
“She is taken out of her head, and talks so queer and
raving.”
Morris had expected this, but he was not prepared to
find the fever so high, or the symptoms so alarming.
“Shall I send for Mrs. Cameron and another doctor,
please?” Esther asked.
Morris had faith in himself, and he would rather no
other hand should minister to Katy; but he knew he could
not stay there long, for there were those at home who
needed his services. Added to this, her family physician
might know her constitution, now, better than he knew
it, and so he answered that it would be well to send for
both the doctor and Mrs. Cameron.
It was just daylight when Mrs. Cameron arrived,
questioning Esther closely, and appearing much surprised
when she heard of Dr. Grant's presence in the
house. That he came by chance, she never doubted, and
as Esther merely answered the questions put directly to
her, Mrs. Cameron had no suspicion of the telegram.
“I am glad he happened here at this time,” she said.
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“I have the utmost confidence in his skill. Still it may
be well for Dr. Craig to see her. I think that is his
ring.”
The city and country physicians agreed exactly with
regard to Katy's illness, or rather the city physician
bowed in acquiescence when Morris said to him that the
fever raging so high had, perhaps, been induced by natural
causes, but was greatly aggravated by some sudden
shock to the nervous system. This was before Mrs.
Cameron came up, but it was repeated in her presence
by Dr. Craig, who thus left the impression that the idea
had originated with himself, rather than with Dr. Grant,
as perhaps he thought it had. He was at first inclined
to patronize the country doctor, but soon found that he
had reckoned without his host. Morris knew more of
Katy, and quite as much of medicine as he did himself,
and when Mrs. Cameron begged him to stay longer, he
answered that her son's wife was as safe in his brother
physician's hands as she could be in his.
Mrs. Cameron was very glad that Dr. Grant was there,
she said. It was surely Providence who sent him to
New York on that particular day, and Morris shivered as
he wondered if it were wrong not to explain the whole
to her.
“Perhaps it is best she should not know of the telegram,”
he thought, and merely bowing to her remarks,
he turned to Katy, who was growing very restless and
moaning as if in pain.
“It hurts,” she said, turning her head from side to
side; “I am lying on Genevra.”
With a sudden start, Mrs. Cameron drew nearer, but
when she remembered the little grave at Silverton, she
said, “It's the baby she's talking about.”
Morris knew better, and as Katy still continued to
move her head as if something were really hurting her,
he passed his hand under her pillow and drew out the
picture she must have kept near her as long as her consciousness
remained. He knew it was Genevra's picture,
and was about to lay it away, when the cover dropped
into his hand, and his eye fell upon a face which was
not new to him, while an involuntary exclamation
of surprise escaped him, as Katy's assertion that
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Genevra was living was thus fully confirmed. Marian had
not changed past recognition since her early girlhood,
and Morris knew the likeness at once, pitying Katy more
than he had pitied her yet, as he remembered how
closely Marian Hazleton had been interwoven with her
married life, and the life of the little child which had
borne her name.
“What is that?” Mrs. Cameron asked, and Morris
passed the case to her, saying, “A picture which was
under Katy's pillow.”
Morris did not look at Mrs. Cameron, but tried to
busy himself with the medicines upon the stand, while
she too recognized Genevra Lambert, wondering how it
came in Katy's possession and how much she knew of
Wilford's secret.
“She must have been rummaging,” she thought, and
then as she remembered what Esther had said about her
mistress appearing sick and unhappy, when her husband
left home, she repaired to the parlor and summoning
Esther to her presence, asked her again, “When she first
observed traces of indisposition in Mrs. Cameron.”
“When she came home from that dinner at your
house. She was just as pale as death, and her teeth
fairly chattered as I took off her things.”
“Dinner? What dinner?” Mrs. Cameron asked, and
Esther replied. “Why, the night Mr. Wilford went away
or was to go. She changed her mind about meeting
him at your house, and said she meant to surprise him.
But she came home before Mr. Cameron, looking like a
ghost, and saying she was sick. It's my opinion something
she ate at dinner hurt her.”
“Very likely, yes. You can go now,” Mrs. Cameron
said, and Esther departed, never dreaming how much
light she had inadvertently thrown upon the mystery.
“She must have been in the library and heard all we
said,” Mrs. Cameron thought, as she nervously twisted
the fringe of her breakfast shawl. “I remember we talked
of Genevra, and that we both heard a strange sound
from some quarter, but thought it came from the kitchen.
That was Katy. She was there all the time and let
herself quietly out of the house. I wonder does Wilford
know,” and then there came over her an intense
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desire for Wilford to come home—a desire which was not
lessened when she returned to Katy's room and heard her
talking of Genevra and the grave at St. Mary's “where
nobody was buried.”
In a tremor of distress, lest she should betray something
which Morris must not know, Mrs. Cameron tried
to hush her, talking as if it was the baby she meant, but
Katy answered promptly, “It's Genevra Lambert I
mean, Wilford's other wife; the one across the sea. She
was innocent, too—as innocent as I, whom you both deceived.”
Here was a phase of affairs for which Mrs. Cameron
was not prepared, and excessively mortified that Morris
should hear Katy's ravings, she tried again to quiet her,
consoling herself with the reflection that as Morris was
Katy's cousin, he would not repeat what he heard, and
feeling gratified now that Dr. Craig was absent, as she
could not be so sure of him. If Katy's delirium continued,
no one must be admitted to the room except those
who could be trusted, and as there had been already several
rings, she said to Esther that as the fever was probably
malignant and contagious, no one must be admitted
to the house with the expectation of seeing the patient,
while the servants were advised to stay in their own
quarters, except as their services might be needed elsewhere.
And so it was that by the morrow the news had
spread of some infectious disease at No. — on Madison
Square, which was shunned as carefully as if small-pox
itself had been raging there instead of the brain fever,
which increased so fast that Morris suggested to Mrs.
Cameron that she telegraph for Wilford.
“They might find him, and they might not, Mother
Cameron said. They could try, at all events,” and in a
few moments the telegraphic wires were carrying the
news of Katy's illness, both to the west, where Wilford
had gone, and to the east, where Helen read with a
blanched cheek that Katy perhaps was dying, and she
must hasten to New York.
This was Mrs. Cameron's suggestion, wrung out by
the knowing that some woman besides herself was needed
in the sick-room, and by feeling that Helen could be
trusted with the story of the first marriage, which Katy
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talked of constantly, telling it so accurately that only a
fool would fail of being convinced that there was much
of truth in those delirious ravings.
CHAPTER XXXVI. THE FEVER AND ITS RESULTS.
WILFORD could not forget Katy's face, so full of
reproach. It followed him continually, and was
the magnet which turned his steps homeward before
his business was quite done, and before the
telegram had found him. Thus it was with no knowledge
of existing circumstances that he reached New
York just at the close of the day, and ordering a carriage,
was driven rapidly towards home. All the shutters in
the front part of the house were closed, and not a ray of
light was to be seen in the parlors as he entered the hall,
where the gas was burning dimly.
“Katy is at home,” he said, as he went into the library,
where a shawl was thrown across a chair, as if some one
had lately been there.
It was his mother's shawl, and Wilford was wondering
if she was there, when down the stairs came a man's rapid
step, and the next moment Dr. Grant came into the
room, starting when he saw Wilford, who felt intuitively
that something was wrong.
“Is Katy sick?” was his first question, which Morris
answered in the affirmative, holding him back as he
was starting for her room, and saying to him, “Let me
send your mother to you first.”
What passed between Wilford and his mother was
never known exactly, but at the close of the interview
Mrs Cameron was very pale, while Wilford's face looked
dark and anxious as he said, “You think he understands
it then?”
“Yes, in part, but the world will be none the wiser for
his knowledge. I knew Dr. Grant before you did, and
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there are few men living whom I respect as much, and
no one whom I would trust as soon.”
Mrs. Cameron had paid a high compliment to Morris
Grant, and Wilford bowed in assent, asking next how
she managed Dr. Craig.
“That was easy, inasmuch as he believed it an insane
freak of Katy's to have no other physician than her
cousin. It was quite natural, he said, adding that she
was as safe with Dr. Grant as any one. And I was glad,
for I could not have a stranger know of that affair.
You will go up now,” Mrs. Cameron continued, and
a moment after Wilford stood in the dimly-lighted room,
where Katy was talking of Genevra and St. Mary's, and
was only kept upon her pillow by the strong arm of Morris,
who stood over her when Wilford entered, trying in
vain to quiet her.
She knew him, and writhing herself away from Morris's
arms, she said to him, “Genevra is not in that grave at
St. Mary's; she is living, and you are not my husband.
So you can leave the house at once. Morris will settle
the estate, and no bill shall be sent in for your board and
lodging.
In some moods Wilford would have smiled at being
thus summarily dismissed from his own house; but he
was too sore now, too sensitive to smile, and his voice
was rather severe as he laid his hand on Katy's and said,
“Don't be foolish, Katy. Don't you know me? I am
Wilford, your husband.”
“That was, you mean,” Katy rejoined, drawing her
hand quickly away. “Go find your first love, where bullets
fall like hail, and where there is pain, and blood, and
carnage. Genevra is there.”
She would not let him come near her, and grew so excited
with his presence that he was forced either to leave
the room or sit where she could not see him. He chose
the latter, and from his seat by the door watched with a
half jealous, angry heart, Morris Grant doing for his
wife what he should have done.
With Morris Katy was gentle as a little child, talking
still of Genevra, but talking quietly, and in a way which
did not wear her out as fast as her excitement did.
“What God hath joined together let not man put
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asunder,” was the text from which she preached several
short sermons as the night wore on, but just as the
morning dawned she fell into the first quiet sleep she had
had during the last twenty-four hours. And while she
slept Wilford ventured near enough to see the sunken
cheeks and hollow eyes which wrung a groan from him
as he turned to Morris, and asked what he supposed was
the immediate cause of her sudden illness?
“A terrible shock, the nature of which I understand,
but you have nothing to fear from me,” Morris replied.
“I accuse you to no man, but leave you to settle it with
your conscience whether you did right to deceive her so
long.”
Morris spoke as one having authority, and Wilford
simply bowed his head, feeling no resentment towards
one who had ventured to reprove him. Afterwards he
might remember it differently, but now he was too anxious
to keep Morris there to quarrel with him, and so he
made no reply, but sat watching Katy as she slept, wondering
if she would die, and feeling how terrible life would
be without her. Suddenly Genevra's warning words rang
in his ear.
“God will not forgive you for the wrong you have done
me.”
Was Genevra right? Had God remembered all this
time, and overtaken him at last? It might be, and with
a groan Wilford hid his face in his hands, believing that
he repented of his sin, and not knowing that his fancied
repentance arose merely from the fact that he had been
detected. Could the last few days be blotted out, and
Katy stand just where she did, with no suspicion of him,
he would have cast his remorse to the winds, and as it is
not such repentance God accepts, Wilford had only begun
to sip the cup of retribution presented to his lips.
Worn out with watching and waiting, Mrs. Cameron,
who would suffer neither Juno nor Bell to come near the
house, waited uneasily for the arrival of the New Haven
train, which she hoped would bring Helen to her aid.
Under ordinary circumstances she would rather not have
met her, for her presence would keep the letter so constantly
in mind; but now anybody who could be trusted
was welcome, and when at last there came a cautious
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ring, she went herself to the hall, starting back with undisguised
vexation when she saw the timid-looking woman
following close behind Helen, and whom the latter presented
as “My mother, Mrs. Lennox.”
Convinced that Morris's sudden journey to New York
had something to do with Katy's illness, and almost distracted
with fears for her daughter's life, Mrs. Lennox
could not remain at home and wait for the tardy mail or
careless telegraph. She must go to her child, and casting
off her dread of Wilford's displeasure, she had come
with Helen, and was bowing meekly to Mrs. Cameron,
who neither offered her hand nor gave any token of
greeting except a distant bow and a simple “Good morning,
madam.”
But Mrs. Lennox was too anxious to notice the lady's
haughty manner as she led them to the library and then
went for her son. Wilford was not glad to see his mother-in-law,
but he tried to be polite, answering her questions
civilly, and when she asked if it were true that he
had sent for Morris, assuring her that it was not. “Dr.
Grant happened here very providentially, and I hope to
keep him until the crisis is past, although he has just
told me he must go back to-morrow.” It hurt Wilford's
pride that she, whom he considered greatly his inferior,
should learn his secret; but it could not now be helped,
and within an hour after her arrival she was looking curiously
at him for an explanation of the strange things
she heard from Katy's lips.
“Was you a widower when you married my daughter?”
she said to him, when at last Helen left the room and she
was alone with him.
“Yes, madam,” he replied, “some would call me so,
though I was divorced from my wife. As this was a matter
which did not in any way concern your daughter, I
deemed it best not to tell her. Latterly she has found it
out, and it is having a very extraordinary effect upon
her.”
And this was all Mrs. Lennox knew until alone with
Helen, who told her the story as she had heard it from
Morris. His sudden journey to New York was thus accounted
for, and Helen explained it to her mother, advising
her to say nothing of it, as it might be better for
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Wilford not to know that Katy had telegraphed for Morris.
It seemed very necessary that Dr. Grant should return
to Silverton, and the day following Helen's arrival
in New York, he made arrangements to do so.
“You have other physicians here,” he said to Wilford,
who objected to his leaving. “Dr. Craig will do as well
as I.”
Wilford admitted that he might, but it was with a sinking
heart that he saw Morris depart, and then went to
Katy, who began to grow very restless and uneasy, bidding
him go away and send Dr. Morris back. It was in
vain that they administered the medicine just as Morris
directed. Katy grew constantly worse, until Mrs. Lennox
asked that another doctor be called. But to this
Wilford would not listen. Fear of exposure and censure
was stronger than his fears for Katy's life, which seemed
balancing upon a thread as that long night and the next
day went by. Three times Wilford telegraphed for Morris,
and it was with unfeigned joy that he welcomed him
back at last, and heard that he had so arranged his business
as to stay with Katy while the danger lasted.
With a monotonous sameness the days now came and
went, people still shunning the house as if the plague
was there. Once, Bell Cameron came round to call on
Helen, holding her breath as she passed through the
hall, and never asking to go near Katy's room. Two or
three times, too, Mrs. Banker's carriage stood at the
door, and Mrs. Banker herself came in, appearing so cool
and distant that Helen could scarcely keep back her tears
as she guessed the cause. Mark, too, was in the city,
having returned with the Seventh Regiment; but from
Esther, Helen learned that he was about joining the army
as captain of a company, composed of the finest men in
the city. The next she heard was from Mrs. Banker,
who, incidentally, remarked, “I shall be very lonely now
that Mark is gone. He left me to-day for Washington.”
There were tears on the mother's face, and her lip
quivered as she tried to keep them back, by looking from
the window into the street, instead of at her companion,
who, overcome with the rush of feeling which swept over
her, laid her face on the sofa arm and sobbed aloud.
“Why, Helen! Miss Lennox, I am surprised! I had
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supposed—I was not aware—I did not think you would
care,” Mrs. Baker exclaimed, coming closer to Helen,
who stammered out, “I beg you will excuse me, I cannot
help it. I care for all our soldiers. It seems so terrible.”
At the words “I care for all the soldiers,” a shadow of
disappointment flitted over Mrs. Banker's face. She
knew her son had offered himself and been refused, as
she supposed; and she believed too that Helen had given
publicity to the affair, feeling justly indignant at this
breach of confidence and lack of delicacy in one whom
she had liked so much, and whom she still liked, in spite
of the wounded pride which had prompted her to appear
so cold and distant.
“Perhaps it is all a mistake,” she thought, as she
continued standing by Helen, “or it may be she has relented,”
and for a moment she felt tempted to ask why
her boy had been refused.
But Mark would not be pleased with her interference,
she knew, and so the golden moment fled, and when she
left the house, the misunderstanding between herself and
Helen was just as wide as ever. Wearily after that the
days passed with Helen until all thoughts of herself
were forgotten in the terrible fear that death was really
brooding over the pillow where Katy lay, insensible to all
that was passing around her. The lips were silent now,
and Wilford had nothing to fear from the tongue hitherto
so busy. Juno, Bell, and father Cameron all came to see
her, dropping tears upon the face looking so old and
worn with suffering. Mrs. Cameron, too, was very sorry,
very sad, but managed to find some consolation in mentally
arranging a grand funeral, which would do honor to
her son, and wondering if “those Barlows in Silverton
would think they must attend.” And while she thus arranged,
the mother who had given birth to Katy wrestled
in earnest prayer that God would spare her child, or at
least grant some space in which she might be told of the
world to which she was hastening. What Wilford suffered
none could guess. His face was very white, and
its expression almost stern, as he sat by the young wife
who had been his for little more than two brief years,
and who, but for his sin, might not have been lying
there, unconscious of the love and grief around her. With
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lip compressed, and brows firmly knit together, Morris,
too, sat watching Katy, feeling for the pulse, and bending
his ear to catch the faintest breath which came from
her parted lips, while in his heart there was an earnest
prayer for the safety of the soul, hovering so evenly between
this world and the next. He did not ask that she
might live, for if all were well hereafter he knew it was
better for her to die in her young womanhood, than to
live till the heart, now so sad and bleeding, had grown
callosed with sorrow. And yet it was terrible to think
of Katy dead; terrible to think of that face and form
laid away beneath the turf of Greenwood, where those
who loved her best could seldom go to weep.
And as they sat there thus, the night shadows stole
into the room, and the hours crept on till from a city
tower a clock struck ten, and Morris, motioning Helen to
his side, bade her go with her mother to rest. “We do
not need you here,” he said; “your presence can do no
good. Should a change occur, you shall be told at once.”
Thus importuned, Helen and her mother withdrew,
and only Morris and Wilford remained to watch that
heavy slumber, so nearly resembling death.
CHAPTER XXXVII. THE CONFESSION.
GRADUALLY, the noise in the streets died away;
the tread of feet, the rumbling wheels, and the
tinkle of car bells ceased, and not a sound was
heard, save as the distant fire bells pealed forth
their warning voices, or some watchman went hurrying
by. The great city was asleep, and to Morris the silence
brooding over the countless throng was deeper, more
solemn, than the silence of the country, where nature
gives out her own mysterious notes and lullabies for her
sleeping children. Slowly the minutes went by, and
Morris became at last aware that Wilford's eyes, instead
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of resting on the pallid face, which seemed to grow
each moment more pallid and ghastly, were fixed on
him with an expression which made him drop the pale
hand he was holding between his own, pooring it occasionally,
as a mother might poor and pity the hand of
her dying baby.
Before his marriage, a jealous thought of Morris Grant,
had found a lodgment in Wilford's breast; but he had
tried to drive it out, and fancied that he had succeeded,
experiencing a sudden shock when he felt it lifting its
green head, and poisoning his mind against the man
who was doing for Katy only what a brother might do.
He forgot that it was his own entreaties which kept
Morris there, away from his Silverton patients, who were
missing him so much, and complaining of his absence.
Jealous men never reason clearly, and in this case, Wilford
did not reason at all, but jumped readily at his conclusion,
calling to his aid as proof all that he had ever seen
pass between Katy and her cousin. That Morris Grant
loved Katy was, after a few moments' reflection, as fixed
a fact in his mind, as that she lay there between them,
moaning feebly, as if about to speak. Years before, jealousy
had made Wilford almost a madman, and it now
held him again in its powerful grasp, whispering suggestions
he would have spurned in a calm frame of mind.
There was a clenching of his fist, a knitting of his brows,
and a gathering blackness in his eyes as he listened while
Katy, rousing partially from her lethargy, talked of the
days when she was a little girl, and Morris had built the
play-house for her by the brook, where the thorn-apples
grew and the waters fell over the smooth, white rocks.
“Take me back there,” she said, “and let me lie on
the grass again. It is so long since I was there, and I've
suffered so much since then. Wilford meant to be kind,
but he did not understand or know how I loved the
country with its birds and flowers and the grass by the
well, where the shadows come and go. I used to wonder
where they were going, and one day when I watched
them I was waiting for Wilford and wondering if he
would ever come again. Would it have been better if
he never had?”
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Wilford's body shook as he bent forward to listen,
while Katy continued:
“Were there no Genevra, I should not think so, but
there is, and yet Morris said that made no difference
when I telegraphed for him to come and take me away.”
Morris felt keenly the awkwardness of his position,
but he could offer no explanation then. He could not
speak with those fiery eyes upon him, and he sat erect
in his chair, while Katy talked of Silverton, until her
voice grew very faint, ceasing at last as she fell into a
second sleep, heavier, more deathlike, than the first.
Something in her face alarmed Morris, and in spite of
the eyes watching him he bent every energy to retain
the feeble pulse, and the breath which grew shorter with
each respiration.
“Do you think her dying?” Wilford asked, and Morris
replied, “The look about the mouth and nose is like
the look which so often precedes death.”
And that was all they said until another hour went
by, when Morris's hand was laid upon the forehead and
moved up under the golden hair where there were drops
of perspiration.
“She is saved! thank God, Katy is saved!” was his
joyful exclamation, and burying his face in his hands,
he wept for a moment like a child.
On Wilford's face there was no trace of tears. On the
contrary, he seemed hardening into stone, and in his
heart fierce passions were contending for the mastery.
What did Katy mean by sending for Morris to take her
away? Did she send for him, and was that the cause of
his being there? If so, there was something between
the cousins more than mere friendship. The thought
was a maddening one. And, rising slowly at last, Wilford
came round to Morris's side, and grasping his
shoulder, said,
“Morris Grant, you love Katy Cameron.”
Like the peal of a bell on the frosty air the words rang
through the room, starting Morris from his bowed attitude,
and for an instant curdling the blood in his veins,
for he understood now the meaning of the look which
had so puzzled him. In Morris's heart there was a moment's
hesitancy to know just what to answer—an
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ejaculatory prayer for guidance—and then lifting up his head,
his calm blue eyes met the eyes of black unflinchingly
as he replied,
“I have loved her always.”
A blaze like sheet lightning shot from beneath Wilford's
eyelashes, and a taunting sneer curled his lip as
he said,
“You, a saint, confess to this?”
It was in keeping with human nature for Wilford to
thrust Morris's religion in his face, forgetting that never
on this side the eternal world can man cease wholly to
sin; that so long as flesh and blood remain, there will be
temptation, error, and wrong, even among God's children.
Morris felt the sneer keenly; but the consciousness
of peace with his Maker sustained him in the shock,
and with the same tone he had at first assumed, he
said,
“Should my being what you call a saint prevent my
confessing what I did?”
“No, not the confession, but the fact,” Wilford answered,
savagely. “How do you reconcile your acknowledged
love for Katy with the injunctions of the
Bible whose doctrines you indorse?”
“A man cannot always control his feelings, but he
can strive to overcome them and put them aside. One
does not sin in being tempted, but in listening to the temptation.”
“Then according to your own reasoning you have
sinned, for you not only have been tempted but have
yielded to the temptation,” Wilford retorted, with a sinister
look of exultation in his black eyes.”
For a moment Morris was silent, while a struggle of
some kind seemed going on in his mind, and then he
said,
“I never thought to lay open to you a secret which,
after myself, is, I believe, known to only one living
being.”
“And that one—is—is Katy?” Wilford exclaimed, his
voice hoarse with passion, and his eyes flashing with
fire.
“No, not Katy. She has no suspicion of the pain
which, since I saw her made another's, has eaten into
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my heart, making me grow old so fast, and blighting my
early manhood.”
Something in Morris's tone and manner made Wilford
relax his grasp upon the arm, and sent him back
to his chair while Morris continued,
“Most men would shrink from talking to a husband
of the love they bore his wife, and an hour ago I
should have shrunk from it too, but you have forced me
to it, and now you must listen while I tell you of my love
for Katy. It began longer ago than she can remember—
began when she was my baby sister, and I hushed her
in my arms to sleep, kneeling by her cradle and watching
her with a feeling I have never been able to define.
She was in all my thoughts, her face upon the printed
page of every book I studied, and her voice in every
strain of music I ever heard. Then when she grew older,
I used to watch the frolicsome child by the hour, building
castles of the future, when she would be a woman,
and I a man, with a man's right to win her. I know
that she shielded me from many a snare into which
young men are apt to fall, for when the temptation was
greatest, and I was at its verge, a thought of her was
sufficient to lead me back to virtue. I carried her in my
heart across the sea, and said when I go back I will ask
her to be mine. I went back, but at my first meeting
with Katy after her return from Canandaigua, she told
me of you, and I knew then that hope for me was gone.
God grant that you may never experience what I experienced
on that day which made her your wife, and I saw
her go away. It seemed almost as if God had forgotten
me as the night after the bridal I sat alone at home, and
met that dark hour of sorrow. In the midst of it Helen
came, discovering my secret, and sympathizing with me
until the pain at my heart grew less, and I could pray
that God would grant me a feeling for Katy which should
not be sinful. And He did at last, so I could think of
her without a wish that she was mine. Times there
were when the old love would burst forth with fearful
power, and then I wished that I might die. These were
my moments of temptation which I struggled to overcome.
Sometimes a song, a strain of music, or a ray of
moonlight on the floor would bring the past to me so
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vividly that I would stagger beneath the burden, and feel
that it was greater than I could bear. But God was
very merciful, and sent me work which took up all my
time, and drove me away from my own pain to soothe
the pain of others. When Katy came to us last summer
there was an hour of trial, when faith in God grew weak,
and I was tempted to question the justice of His dealing
with me. But that too passed, and in my love for
your child I forgot the mother in part, looking upon
her as a sister rather than the Katy I had loved so well.
I would have given my life to have saved that child for
her, even though it was a bar between us, something
which separated her from me more than the words she
spoke at the altar. Though dead, that baby is still a
bar, and Katy is not the same to me she was before that
little life came into being. It is not wrong to love her
as I do now. I feel no pang of conscience save when
something unexpected carries me back to the old ground
where I have fought so many battles.”
Morris paused a moment, while Wilford said, “She
spoke of telegraphing for you. Why was that, and
when?”
Thus interrogated, Morris told of the message which
had brought him to New York, and narrated as cautiously
as possible the particulars of the interview which
followed.
Morris's manner was that of a man who spoke with
perfect sincerity, and it carried conviction to Wilford's
heart, disarming him for a time of the fierce anger and
resentment he had felt while listening to Morris's story.
Acting upon the good impulse of the moment, he arose,
and offering his hand to Morris, said,
“Forgive me that I ever doubted you. It was natural
that you should come, but foolish in Katy to send or
think Genevra is living. I have seen her grave myself.
I know that she is dead. Did Katy name any one whom
she believed to be Genevra?”
“No one. She merely said she had seen the original
of the picture,” Morris replied.
“A fancy,—a mere whim,” Wilford muttered to himself,
as, greatly disquieted and terribly humbled, he paced
the room moodily, trying not to think hard thoughts
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either against his wife or Dr. Grant, who, feeling that it
would be pleasanter for Wilford if he were gone, suggested
returning to Silverton at once, inasmuch as the
crisis was past and Katy out of danger. There was a
struggle in Wilford's mind as to the answer he should
make to this suggestion, but at last he signified his willingness
for the doctor to leave when he thought best.
It was broad day when Katy woke, so weak as to be
unable to turn her head upon the pillow, but in her eyes
the light of reason was shining, and she glanced wonderingly,
first at Helen, who had come in, and then at
Wilford, as if trying to comprehend what had happened.
“Have I been sick?” she asked in a whisper, and Wilford,
bending over her, replied, “Yes, very sick for nearly
two whole weeks—ever since I left home that morning,
you know?”
“Yes,” and Katy shivered a little. “Yes, I know.
But where is Morris? He was here the last I can remember.”
Wilford's face grew dark at once, and stepping back as
Morris came in, he said, “She asks for you.” Then with
a rising feeling of resentment he watched them, while
Morris spoke to Katy, telling her she must not allow herself
in any way to be excited.
“Have I been crazy? Have I talked much?” she
asked; and when Morris replied in the affirmative, she
said, “Of whom have I talked most?”
“Of Genevra,” was the answer, and Katy continued,
“Did I mention any one else?”
Morris guessed of whom she was thinking, and answered
indifferently, “You spoke of Miss Hazleton in
connection with baby, but that was all.”
Katy was satisfied, and closing her eyes fell away to
sleep again, while Morris made his preparations for leaving.
It hardly seemed right for him to go just then, but
the only one who could have kept him maintained a frigid
silence with regard to a longer stay, and so the first train
which left New York for Springfield carried Dr. Grant,
and Katy was without a physician.
Wilford had hoped that Mrs. Lennox, too, would see
the propriety of accompanying Morris, but she would not
leave Katy, and Wilford was fain to submit to what he
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could not help. No explanation whatever had he given
to Mrs. Lennox or Helen with regard to Genevra. He
was too proud for that, but his mother had deemed it
wise to smooth the matter over as much as possible, and
enjoin upon them both the necessity of secrecy.
“When I tell you that neither my husband nor daughters
know it, you will understand that I am greatly in
earnest in wishing it kept,” she said. “It was a most
unfortunate affair, and though the divorce is, of course,
to be lamented, it is better that she died. We never
could have received her as our equal.”
“Was anything the matter, except that she was poor?”
Mrs. Lennox asked, with as much dignity as was in her
nature to assume.
“Well, no. She had a good education, I believe, and
was very pretty; but it makes trouble always where there
is a great inequality between a husband's family and that
of his wife.”
Poor Mrs. Lennox understood this perfectly, but she
was too much afraid of the great lady to venture a reply,
and a tear rolled down her cheek as she wet the napkin
for Katy's head, and wished she had back again the
daughter whose family the Camerons despised. The atmosphere
of Madison Square did not suit Mrs Lennox,
especially when, as the days went by and Katy began to
amend, troops of gay ladies called, mistaking her for the
nurse, and staring a little curiously when told she was
Mrs. Cameron's mother. Of course Wilford chafed and
fretted at what he could not help, making himself so generally
disagreeable that Helen at last suggested returning
home. There was a faint remonstrance on his part, but
Helen did not waver in her decision, and the next day
was fixed upon for her departure.
“You don't know how I dread your going, or how
wretched I shall be without you,” Katy said, when for a
few moments they were alone. “Everything which once
made me happy has been removed or changed. Baby is
dead, and Wilford, oh! Helen, I sometimes wish I had
not heard of Genevra, for I am afraid it can never be
with us as it was once; I have not the same trust in him,
and he seems so changed.”
As well as she could, Helen comforted her sister, and
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commending her to One who would care for her far more
than earthly friends could do, she bade her good-bye,
and with her mother went back to Silverton.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. DOMESTIC TROUBLES.
WILFORD was in a most unhappy frame of mind.
He had been humbled to the very dust, and it
was Katy who had done it—Katy, towards whom
his heart kept hardening as he thought over all
the past. What right had she to go to his mother's after
having once declined; or, being there, what right had
she to listen and thus learn the secret he would almost
have died to keep; or, having learned it, why need she
have been so much excited, and sent for Dr. Grant to tell
her if she were really a wife, and if not to take her away?
That was the point which hurt him most, for added to it
was the galling fact that Morris Grant loved his wife, and
was undoubtedly more worthy of her than himself. He
had said that he forgave Morris, and at the time he said
it he fancied he did, but as the days went by, and thought
was all the busier from the moody silence he maintained,
there gradually came to life a feeling of hatred for the
man whose name he could not hear without a frown,
while he watched Katy closely to detect, if possible, some
sign by which he should know that Morris's love was reciprocated.
But Katy was innocence itself, and tried so
hard to do her duty as a wife, going often to the Friend
of whom Helen had told her, and finding there the grace
which helped her bear what otherwise she could not have
borne and lived. The entire history of her life during
that wretched winter was never told save as it was written
on her face, which was a volume in itself of meek and
patient suffering.
Wilford had never mentioned Genevra to her since
the day of his return, and Katy sometimes felt it would
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be well to talk that matter over. It might lead to a
better understanding than existed between them now,
and dissipate the cloud which hung so darkly on their
domestic horizon. But Wilford repulsed all her advances
on that subject, and Genevra was a dead name in their
household. Times there were when for an entire day he
would appear like his former self, caressing her with unwonted
tenderness, but never asked her forgiveness for
all he had made her suffer. He was too proud to do that,
and his tenderness always passed away when he remembered
Morris Grant and Katy's remark to Helen which he
accidentally overheard. “I am afraid it can never be with
us as it was once. I have not the same trust in him.”
“She had no right to complain of me,” he thought, forgetting
the time when he had been guilty of a similar
offence in a more aggravated form. He could not reason
upon anything naturally, and matters grew daily worse,
while Katy's face grew whiter and her voice sadder in its
tone.
When the Lenten days came on, oh how Katy longed
to be in Silverton—to kneel again in its quiet church, and
offer up her penitential prayers with the loved ones at
home. At last she ventured to ask Wilford if she might
go, her spirits rising when he did not refuse her request
at once, but asked,
“Whom do you wish to see the most?”
His black eyes seemed reading her through, and
someththing in their expression brought to her face the
blush he construed according to his jealousy, and when
she answered, “I wish to see them all,” he retorted,
“Say, rather, you wish to see that doctor, who has loved
you so long, and who but for me would have asked you to
be his wife!”
“What doctor, Wilford? whom do you mean?” she
asked, and Wilford replied,
“Dr. Grant, of course. Did you never suspect it?”
“Never,” and Katy's face grew very white, while Wilford
continued,
“I had it from his own lips; he sitting on one side of you
and I upon the other. I so forgot myself as to charge
him with loving you, and he did not deny it, but confessed
as pretty a piece of romance as I ever read, except that,
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according to his story, it was a one-sided affair, confined
wholly to himself. You never dreamed of it, he
said.”
“Never, no never,” Katy said, panting for her breath,
and remembering suddenly many things which confirmed
what she had heard.
“Poor Morris, how my thoughtlessness must have
wounded him,” she murmured, and then all the pent up
passion in Wilford's heart burst out in an impetuous
storm.
He did not charge his wife directly with returning
Morris's love; but he said she was sorry she had not
known it earlier, asking her pointedly if it were not so,
and pressing her for an answer, until the bewildered
creature cried out,
“Oh, I don't know. I never thought of it before.”
“But you can think of it now,” Wilford continued, his
cold, icy tone making Katy shiver, as, more to herself
than to him, she whispered,
“A life at Linwood with him would be perfect rest,
compared with this.”
Wilford had goaded her on to say that which roused
him to a pitch of frenzy.
“You can go to your rest at Linwood as soon as you
like, and I will go my way,” he whispered hoarsely, and
believing himself the most injured man in existence, he
left the house, and Katy heard his step, as it went furiously
down the steps. For a time she sat stunned with
what she had heard, and then there came stealing into
her heart a glad feeling that Morris deemed her worthy
of his love when she had so often feared the contrary.
And in this she was not faithless to Wilford. She could
pray with just as pure a heart as before, and she did
pray, thanking God for the love of this good man, but
asking that long ere this he might have learned to be
content without her. Never once did the thought “It
might have been,” intrude itself upon her, nor did she
send one regret after the life she had missed. She seemed
to rise above all that, and Wilford, had he read her heart,
would have found no evil there.
“Poor Morris,” she kept repeating, while little throbs
of pleasure went dancing through her veins, and the
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world was not one half so dreary for knowing he had
loved her. Towards Wilford, too, her heart went out in
a fresh gush of tenderness, for she knew how one of his
jealous nature must have suffered.
And all that day she was thinking of him, and how
pleasantly she would meet him when he came home at
night, and how she would try to win him from the dark
silent mood now so habitual to him. More than usual
pains she took with her toilet, arranging her bright hair
in the long, glossy curls, which she knew he used to admire,
and making sundry little changes in her black
dress. Excitement had brought a faint flush to her
cheeks, and she was conscious of a feeling of gratification
that for the first time in months she was looking
like her former self. Slowly the minutes crept on,
and the silver-toned clock in the dining-room said it
was time for Wilford to come; then the night shadows
gathered in the rooms, and the gas was lighted in the
hall and in the parlor, where Katy's face was pressed
against the window pane, and Katy's eyes peered anxiously
out into the darkening streets, but saw no one
alighting at their door. Wilford did not come. Neither
six, nor seven, nor eight brought him home, and Katy
sat down alone to her dinner, which, save the soup and
coffee, was removed untasted. She could not eat with
the terrible dread at her heart that this long protracted
absence portended something more than common. Ten,
eleven, and twelve struck from a distant tower. He had
staid out as late as that frequently, but rarely later,
and Katy listened again for him, until the clock struck
one, and she grew sick with fear and apprehension. It
was a long, long, wretched night, but morning came at
last, and at an early hour Katy drove down to Wilford's
office, finding no one there besides Tom Tubbs
and Mills, the other clerk. Katy could not conceal
her agitation, and her face was very white as she
asked what time Mr. Cameron left the office the previous
day.
If Katy had one subject more loyal than another it
was young Tom Tubbs, whose boyish blood had often
boiled with rage at the cool manner with which Wilford
treated his wife, when, as she sometimes did, she came
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into the office. Tom worshiped Katy Cameron, who,
in his whispered confidences to Mattie, was an angel,
while Wilford was accused of being an overbearing tyrant,
whom Tom would like to thrash. He saw at once,
that something unusual was troubling her, and hastening
to bring her a chair, told her that Mr. Cameron left the
office about four o'clock; that he had spent the most of
the day in his private office writing and looking over
papers; that he had given his clerks so many directions
with regard to certain matters, that Mills had remarked
upon it, saying, “It would seem as if he did not expect
to be here to see to it himself;” and this was all Katy
could learn, but it was enough to increase the growing
terror at her heart, and dropping her veil, she went out
to her carriage, followed by Tom, who adjusted the gay
robe across her lap, and then looked wistfully after her as
she drove up Broadway.
“To father Cameron's,” she said to the driver, who
turned his horses towards Fifth Avenue, where, just
coming down the steps of his own house, they met the
elder Cameron.
Katy would rather see him first alone, and motioning
him to her side she whispered: “Oh, father, is Wilford
here?”
“Wilford be—”; the old man did not say what, for
the expression of Katy's face startled him.
That there was something wrong, and father Cameron
knew it, was Katy's conviction, and she gasped out,
“Tell me the worst. Is Wilford dead?”
Father Cameron was in the carriage by this time, and
riding towards Madison Square, for he did not care to
introduce Katy into his household, which, just at present,
presented a scene of dire confusion and dismay, occasioned
by a note received from Wilford to the intent that
he had left New York, and did not know when he should
return.
“Katy can tell you why I go,” he added, and father
Cameron was going to Katy when she met him at his
door.
To Katy's repeated question, “Is he dead?” he answered,
“Worse than that, I fear. He has left the city,
and no one knows for what, unless you do. From
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something he wrote, my wife is led to suppose there was
trouble between you two. Was there?” and father Cameron's
grey eyes rested earnestly on the white, frightned
face which looked up so quickly as Katy gasped,
“There has been trouble—that is, he has not appeared
quite the same since—”
She was interrupted by the carriage stopping before her
door; but when they were in the parlor, father Cameron
said,
“Go on now. Wilford has not been the same since
when?”
Thus importuned Katy, continued,
“Since baby died. I think he blamed me as the cause
of its death.”
“Don't babies die every day?” father Cameron growled,
while Katy, without considering that he had never heard
of Genevra, continued,
“And then it was worse after I found out about Genevra,
his first wife.”
“Genevra! Genevra, Wilford's first wife! Thunder
and lightning! what are you talking about?” and father
Cameron bent down to look in Katy's face, thinking she
was going mad.
But Katy was not mad, and knowing it was now too
late to retract, she told the story of Genevra Lambert to
the old man, who, utterly confounded, stalked up and
down the room, kicking away chairs and footstools, and
whatever came in his way, and swearing promiscuously
at his wife and Wilford, whom he pronounced a precious
pair of fools, with a dreadful adjective appended to the
fools, and an emphasis in his voice which showed he
meant what he said.
“It's all accounted for now,” he said; “the piles of
money that boy had abroad, his privacy with his mother,
and all the other tomfoolery I could not understand.
Katy,” and pausing in his walk, Mr. Cameron came close
to his daughter-in-law, who was lying with her face upon
the sofa. “Katy, be glad your baby died. Had it lived
it might have proved a curse, just as mine have done—
not all, for Bell, though fiery as a pepper-pod, has some
heart, some sense—and there was Jack, my oldest boy,
a little fast it's true, but when he died over the sea, I
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forgave all that, and forgot the chair he broke over a
tutor's head, and the scrapes for which I paid as high as
a thousand at one time. He sowed his wild oats, and
died before he could reap them—died a good man, I
believe, and went to Heaven. Juno you know, and you
can judge whether she is such as would delight a parent's
heart; while Wilford, my only boy, to deceive me so;
I knew he was a fool in some things, but I did trust
Wilford.”
The old man's voice shook now, and Katy felt his tears
dropping on her hair as he stooped over her. Checking
them, however, he said,
“And he was cross because you found him out. Was
there no other reason?”
Katy thought of Dr. Morris, but she could not tell of
that, and so she answered,
“There was—but please don't ask me now. I can't tell,
only I was not to blame. Believe me, father, I was not
to blame.”
“I'll swear to that,” was the reply, and father Cameron
commenced his walking again, just as Esther came to
the door with the morning letters.
There was one from Wilford for Katy, who nervously
tore off the envelope and read as follows:
“Will you be sorry when you read this and find that I am gone,
that you are free from the husband you do not love,—whom, perhaps,
you never loved, though I thought you did. I trusted you
once, and now I do not blame you as much as I ought, for you are
young and easily influenced. You are very susceptible to flattery,
as was proven by your career at Saratoga and Newport. I had no
suspicion of you then, but now that I know you better, I see that it
was not all childish simplicity which made you smile so graciously
upon those who sought your favor. You are a coquette, Katy, and
the greater one because of that semblance of artlessness which is the
perfection of art. This, however, I might forgive, if I had not learned
that another man loved you first and wished to make you his wife,
while you, in your secret heart, wish you had known it sooner. Don't
deny it, Katy; I saw it in your face when I first told you of Dr.
Grant's confession, and I heard it in your voice as well as in your
words when you said `A life at Linwood would be perfect rest
compared with this.' That hurt me cruelly, Katy. I did not deserve
it from one for whom I have done and borne so much, and it was the
final cause of my leaving you, for I am going to Washington to enroll
myself in the service of my country. You will be happier without
me for awhile, and perhaps when I return, Linwood will not look
quite the little paradise it does now.
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“I might reproach you with having telegraphed to Dr. Grant about
that miserable Genevra affair which you had not discretion enough
to keep to yourself. Few men would care to have their wives send
for a former lover in their absence and ask that lover to take them
away. Your saintly cousin, good as he is, cannot wonder at my vexation,
or blame me greatly for going away. Perhaps he will offer
you comfort, both religious and otherwise: but if you ever wish me
to return, avoid him as you would shun a deadly poison. Until I
countermand the order, I wish you to remain in the house which
I bought for you. Helen and your mother both may live with
you, while father will have a general oversight of your affairs; I shall
send him a line to that effect.
“Your Disappointed Husband.”
This was the letter, and there was perfect silence while
Katy read it through, Mr. Cameron never taking his eyes
from her face, which turned first white, then red, then
spotted, and finally took a leaden hue as Katy ran over
the lines, comprehending the truth as she read, and
when the letter was finished, lifting her dry, tearless eyes
to Father Cameron, and whispering to herself,
“Deserted!”
She let him read the letter, and when he had finished,
explained the parts he did not understand, telling him
now what Morris had confessed—telling him too that
in her first sorrow, when life and sense seemed reeling,
she had sent for Dr. Grant, knowing she could trust him
and be right in doing whatever he advised.
“Why did you say you sent for him—that is, what was
the special reason?” Mr. Cameron asked, and Katy told him
her belief that Genevra was living—that it was she who
made the bridal trousseau for Wilford's second wife, she
who nursed his child until it died, giving to it her own
name, arraying it for the grave, and then leaving before
the father came.
“I never told Wilford,” Katy said. “I felt as if I
would rather he should not know it yet. Perhaps I was
wrong, but if so, I have been terribly punished.”
Mr. Cameron could not look upon the woman who
stood before him, so helpless and stricken in her desolation,
and believe her wrong in anything. The guilt lay
in another direction, and when, as the terrible reality
that she was indeed a deserted wife came rushing over
Katy, she tottered toward him for help; he stretched his
arms out for her, and taking the sinking figure in them,
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laid it upon the sofa as gently, as kindly, as Wilford had
ever touched it in his most loving days.
Katy did not faint nor weep. She was past all that;
but her face was like a piece of marble, and her eyes were
like those of the hunted fawn when the chase is at its
height, and escape impossible.
“Wilford will come back, of course,” the father said,
“but that does not help us now. What the plague—who
is ringing that bell enough to break the wire?” he added,
as a sharp, rapid ring echoed through the house, and
was answered by Esther. “It's my wife,” he continued,
as he caught the sound of her voice in the hall.
“You stay here while I meet her first alone. I'll give
it to her for cheating me so long, and raising thunder
generally!”
Katy tried to protest, but he was half way down the
stairs, and in a moment more was with his wife, who, impatient
at his long delay, had come herself, armed and
equipped, to censure Katy as the cause of Wilford's disappearance,
and to demand of her what she had done.
But the lady who came in so haughty and indignant
was a very different personage from the lady who, after
listening for fifteen minutes to a fearful storm of oaths
and reproaches, mingling with startling truths and bitter
denunciations against herself and her boy, sank into a
chair, pale and trembling, and overwhelmed with the
harvest she was reaping.
But her husband was not through with her yet. He
had reserved the bitterest drop for the last, and coming
close to her he said,
“And who think you the woman is—this Genevra,
Wilford's and your divorced wife? You were too proud
to acknowledge an apothecary's daughter! See if you
like better a dressmaker, a nurse to Katy's baby, Marian
Hazelton!”
He whispered the last name, and with a shriek the lady
fainted. Mr. Cameron would not summon a servant;
and as there was no water in the room, he walked to the
window, and lifting the sash scraped from the sill a handful
of the light spring snow which had been falling
since morning. With this he brought his wife back to
consciousness, and then marked out her future course.
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“I know what is in your mind,” he said; “people will
talk about Wilford's going off so suddenly, and you would
like to have all the blame rest on Katy; but, madam
hear me: Just so sure as through your means one breath
of suspicion falls on her, I'll bla-at out the whole story of
Genevra. Then see who is censured. On the other hand,
if you hold your tongue, and make Juno hold hers, and
stick to Katy through thick and thin, acting as if you
would like to swallow her whole, I'll say nothing of this
Genevra. Is it a bargain?”
“Yes,” came faintly from the sofa cushions, where Mrs.
Cameron had buried her face, sobbing in a confused,
frightened way, and after a few moments asking to see
Katy, whom she kissed and caressed with unwonted tenderness,
telling her Wilford would come back, and adding,
that in any event no one could or should blame her.
“Wilford was wrong to deceive you about Genevra. I
was wrong to let him; but we will have no more concealments.
You think she is living still—that she is Marian
Hazelton?” and Mrs. Cameron smoothed Katy's hair as
she talked, trying to be motherly and kind, while her
heart beat more painfully at thoughts of a Genevra living,
than it ever had at thoughts of a Genevra dead.
She did not doubt the story, although it seemed so
strange, and it made her faint as she wondered if the
world would ever know, and what it would say if it did.
That her husband would tell, if she failed in a single
point, she was sure; but she would not fail. She would
swear Katy was innocent of everything, if necessary,
while Juno and Bell should swear too. Of course, they
must know, and she should tell them that very night, she
said to herself; and hence it was that in the gossip
which followed Wilford's disappearance, not a word was
breathed against Katy, whose cause the family espoused
so warmly,—Bell and the father because they really loved
and pitied her, and Mrs. Cameron and Juno because it
saved them from the disgrace which would have fallen
on Wilford, had the fashionable world known then of
Genevra.
Wilford's leaving home so suddenly to join the army,
could not fail, even in New York, to cause some excitement,
especially in his own immediate circle of
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acquaintance, and for several days the matter was discussed in
all its phases, and every possible opinion and conjecture
offered, as to the cause of his strange freak. They could
not believe in domestic troubles when they saw how his
family clung to and defended Katy from the least approach
of censure, Juno taking up her abode with her
“afflicted sister,” Mrs. Cameron driving round each day
to see her; Bell always speaking of her with genuine affection,
while the father clung to her like a hero, the
quartette forming a barrier across which the shafts of
scandal could not reach.
CHAPTER XXXIX. WHAT FOLLOWED.
WHEN Wilford left Katy so abruptly he had no
definite purpose in his mind. He was very sore
with the remembrance of all that had passed
since baby's death, and very angry at his wife,
who he believed preferred another to himself, or who
would have done so had she known in time what she did
now. Like most angry people, he forgot wherein he had
been in fault, but charged it all to Katy as he went down
Broadway that spring morning, finding on his table a
letter from an old classmate, who was then in Washington
getting up a company, and who wrote urging his friend to
join him at once, and offering him the rank of First
Lieutenant. Here was a temptation,—here an opportunity
to revenge himself on Katy, against whom he wrote
a sad list of errors, making it sadder by brooding over
and magnifying it until he reached a point from which
he would not swerve.
“I shall do it,” he said, and his lips were pressed firmly
together, as in his private office he sat revolving the past,
and then turning to the future, opening so darkly before
him, and making him shudder as he thought of what it
might bring. “I will spare Katy as much as possible,”
he said, “for hers is a different nature from Genevra's.
She cannot bear as well,” and a bitter groan broke the
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silence of the room as Katy came up before him just as
she had looked that very morning standing by the window,
with tears in her eyes, and a wistful, sorry look on
her white face.
But Wilford was not one to retract when a decision
was reached, and so he arranged his business matters as
well as his limited time would allow; then, after the brief
note to his father, wrote the letter to Katy, and then followed
to the Jersey ferry a regiment of soldiers who
were going on to Washington that night. Four days
more and Lieutenant Wilford Cameron, with no regret
as yet for the past, marched away to swell the ranks of
men who, led by General McClellan, were pressing on,
as they believed, to Richmond and victory. A week of
terrible suspense went by, and then there came a letter
to Mr. Cameron from his son, requesting him to care for
Katy, but asking no forgiveness for himself. There were
no apologies, no explanations, no kind words for Katy,
whose eyes moved slowly over the short letter, and then
were lifted sadly to her father's face as she said,
“I will write to him myself, and on his answer will
depend my future course.”
This she said referring to the question she had raised
as to whether she should remain in New York or go to
Silverton, where the family as yet knew nothing except
that Wilford had joined the army. And so the days
went by, while Katy's letter was sent to Wilford, together
with another from his father, who called his son a “confounded
fool,” telling him to throw up his shoulder
straps, which only honest men had a right to wear, and
come home where he belonged.
To this there came an indignant answer, bidding the
father attend to his own business, and allow the son to
attend to his. To Katy, however, Wilford wrote in a
different strain, showing here and there marks of tenderness
and relenting, but saying what he had done could
not now be helped,—he was in for a soldier's life for two
years, and should abide his choice.
This was the purport of Wilford's letter, and Katy,
when she finished reading it, said sorrowfully,
“Wilford never loved me, and I cannot stay in his
home, knowing that I am not trusted and respected as a
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wife should be. I will go to Silverton. There is room
for me there.
Meanwhile at Silverton there was much anxiety for
Katy, and many doubts expressed lest something was
wrong. That Wilford should go away so suddenly, when
he had never been noted for any very great amount of
patriotism, seemed strange, and Uncle Ephraim at last
made up his mind to the herculean task of going to New
York to see what was the matter.
Presuming upon her experience as a traveler, Aunt
Betsy had proffered sundry pieces of advice with reference
to what it was best for him to do on the road, telling
him which side of the car to sit, where to get out,
and above all things not to shake hands with the conductor
when asked for his ticket.
Uncle Ephraim heard her good-humoredly, and stuffing
into his pocket the paper of ginger-snaps, fried cakes
and cheese, which Aunt Hannah had prepared for his
lunch, he started for the cars, and was soon on his way
to New York.
In his case there was no Bob Reynolds to offer aid
and comfort, and the old man was nearly torn in pieces
by the hackmen, who, the moment he appeared to view,
pounced upon him as lawful prey, each claiming the
honor of taking him wherever he wished to go, and raising
such a din about his ears that he turned away
thoroughly disgusted, telling them—
“He had feet and legs, and common sense, and he
guessed he could find his way without 'em. “Bleeged to
you, gentlemen, but I don't need you,” and with a profound
bow the honest-looking old deacon walked away,
asking the first man he met the way to Madison Square,
and succeeding in finding the number without difficulty.
With a scream of joy Katy threw herself into Uncle
Ephraim's arms, and then led him to her own room,
while the first tears she had shed since she knew she was
deserted rained in torrents over her face.
“What is it, Katy-did? I mistrusted something was
wrong. What has happened?” Uncle Ephraim asked;
and with his arm around her, Katy told him what had
happened, and asked what she should do.
“Do?” the old man repeated. “Go home with me to
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your own folks until he comes from the wars. He is
your husband, and I shall say nothing agin him; but if it
was to go over I would forbid the banns. That chap has
misused you the wust way. You need not deny it, for
it's writ all over your face,” he continued, as Katy tried
to stop him, for sore as was her heart with the great injustice
done her, she would not have Wilford blamed, and
she was glad when dinner was announced, as that would
put an end to the painful conversation.
Leading Uncle Ephraim to the table, she presented him
to Juno, whose cold nod and haughty stare were lost on
the old man, bowing his white head so reverently as he
asked the first blessing which had ever been asked at
that table.
It had not been a house of prayer—no altar had been
erected for the morning and evening sacrifice. God had
almost been forgotten, and now He was pouring His wrath
upon the handsome dwelling, making it so distasteful that
Katy was anxious to leave it, and expressed her desire to
accompany Uncle Ephraim to Silverton as soon as the
necessary arrangements could be made.
“I don't take it she comes for good,” Uncle Ephraim said
that evening, when Mr. Cameron opposed her going.
When the two years are gone, and her man wants her back,
she must come of course. But she grows poor here in the
city. It don't agree with her like the scent of the clover
and the breeze from the hils. So, shet up the house for
a spell, and let the child come with me.”
Mr. Cameron knew that Katy would be happier at Silverton,
and he finally consented to her going, and placed
at her disposal a sum which seemed to the deacon a little
fortune in itself.
To Mrs. Cameron and Juno it was a relief to have Katy
taken from their hands, and though they made a show of
opposition, they were easily quieted, and helped her off
with alacrity, the mother promising to see that the house
was properly cared for, and Juno offering to send the
latest fashions which might be suitable, as soon as they appeared.
Bell was heartily sorry to part with the young
sister, who seemed going from her forever.
“I know you will never come back. Something tells me
so,” she said, as she stood with her arms around Katy's
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waist, and her lips occasionally touching Katy's forehead.
“But I shall see you,” she continued; “I am coming to
the farm-house in the summer, and you may say to Aunt
Betsy that I like her ever so much, and”—Bell glanced behind
her, to see that no one was listening, and then continued—
“tell her a certain officer was sick a few days in a
hospital last winter, and one of his men brought to him
a dish of the most delicious dried peaches he ever ate.
That man was from Silverton, and the fruit was sent
to him, he said, in a salt bag, by a nice old lady, for whose
brother he used to work. Just to think that the peaches
I helped to pare, coloring my hands so that the stain did
not come off in a month, should have gone so straight to
Bob!” and Bell's fine features shone with a light which
would have told Bob Reynolds he was beloved, if the lips
did refuse to confess it.
“I'll tell her,” Katy said, and then bidding them all
good-bye, and putting her hand on Uncle Ephraim's arm,
she went with him from the home where she had lived
but two years, and those the saddest, most eventful ones
of her short life.
CHAPTER XL. MARK AND HELEN.
THERE was much talk in Silverton when it was
known that Katy had come to stay until her husband
returned from the war, and at first the
people watched her curiously as she came among
them again, so quiet, so subdued, so unlike the Katy of old
that they would have hardly recognized her but for the
beauty of her face and the sunny smile she gave to all,
and which rested oftenest on the poor and suffering, who
blessed her as the angel of their humble homes, praying
that God would remember her for all she was to them.
Wilford had censured her at first for going to Silverton,
when he preferred she should stay in New York, hinting
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darkly at the reason of her choice, and saying to her
once, when she told him how the Sunday before her
twenty-first birthday she had knelt before the altar and
taken upon herself the vows of confirmation, “Your
saintly cousin is, of course, delighted, and that I suppose
is sufficient, without my congratulations.”
Perhaps he did not mean it, but he seemed to take delight
in teasing her, and Katy sometimes felt she should
be happier without his letters than with them. He never
said he was sorry he had left her so suddenly—indeed he
seldom referred to the past in any way; or if he did, it
was in a manner which showed that he thought himself
the injured party, if either.
Katy did not often go to Linwood, and seldom saw
Morris alone. After what had passed she thought it
better to avoid him as much as possible, and was glad
when early in June he accepted a situation offered him
as surgeon in a Georgetown hospital, and left Silverton
for his new field of labor.
True to her promise, Bell came the last of July to Silverton,
proving herself a dreadful romp, as she climbed
over the rocks in Aunt Betsy's famous sheep-pasture, or
raked the hay in the meadow, and proving herself, too, a
genuine woman, as with blanched cheek and anxious
heart she waited for tidings from the battles before Richmond,
where the tide of success seemed to turn, and the
North, hitherto so jubilant and hopeful, wore weeds of
mourning from Maine to Oregon. Lieut. Bob was there,
and Wilford, too; and so was Captain Ray, digging in
the marshy swamps, where death floated up in poisonous
exhalations—plodding on the weary march, and fighting
all through the seven days, where the sun poured down
its burning heat and the night brought little rest. No
wonder, then, that three faces at the farm-house grew
white with anxiety, or that three pairs of eyes grew dim
with watching the daily papers. But the names of neither
Wilford, Mark, nor Bob were ever found among the
wounded, dead or missing, and with the fall of the first
autumn leaf Bell returned to the city more puzzled, more
perplexed than ever with regard to Helen Lennox's real
feelings toward Captain Ray.
The week before Christmas, Mark came home for a few
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days, looking ruddy and bronzed from exposure and
hardship, but wearing a disappointed, listless look which
Bell was quick to detect, connecting it in some way with
Helen Lennox. Only once did he call at Mr. Cameron's,
and then as Juno was out Bell had him to herself, talking
of Silverton, of Helen and Katy, in the latter of
whom he seemed far more interested than her sister.
Many questions he asked concerning Katy, expressing his
regret that Wilford had left her, and saying he believed
Wilford was sorry, too. He was in the hospital now, with
a severe cold and a touch of the rheumatism, he said; but
as Bell knew this already she did not dwell long upon
that subject, choosing rather to talk of Helen, who, she
said, was “as much interested in the soldiers, as if she
had a brother or a lover in the army,” and her bright
eyes glanced meaningly at Mark, who answered carelessly,
“Dr. Grant is there, and that may account for her interest.”
Mark knew he must say something to ward off Bell's
attacks, and he continued talking of Dr. Grant and how
much he was liked by the poor wretches who needed
some one like him to keep them from dying of home-sickness
if nothing else; then, after a few bantering
words concerning Lieutenant Bob and the picture he carried
into every battle, buttoned closely over his heart,
Mark Ray took his leave, while Bell ran up to her
mother's room as a seamstress was occupying her own.
Mrs. Cameron was out that afternoon, and that she had
dressed in a hurry was indicated by the unusual confusion
of her room. Drawers were left open and various
articles scattered about, while on the floor, just as it had
fallen from a glove-box, lay a letter which Bell picked up,
intending to replace it.
“Miss Helen Lennox,” she read in astonishment. “How
came Helen Lennox's letter here, and from Mark Ray too,”
she continued, still more amazed as she took the neatly
folded note from the envelope and glanced at the name.
“Foul play somewhere. Can it be mother?” she asked,
as she read enough to know that she held in her hand
Mark's offer of marriage, which had in some mysterious
manner found its way to her mother's room. “I don't
understand it,” she said, racking her brain for a solution
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of the mystery. “But I'll send it to Helen this very day,
and to-morrow I'll tell Mark Ray.”
Procrastination was not one of Bell Cameron's faults,
and for full half an hour before her mother and Juno
came home, the stolen letter had been lying in the mail
box where Bell herself deposited it, together with a few
hurriedly-written lines, telling how it came into her
hands, but offering no explanation of any kind.
“Mark is home now on a leave of absence which expires
day after to-morrow,” she wrote, “I am going round
to see him, and if you do not hear from him in person
I am greatly mistaken.”
The next day a series of hindrances kept Bell from
making her call as early as she had intended, so that
Mrs. Banker and Mark were just rising from dinner when
told she was in the parlor.
“I meant to have come before,” she said, seating herself
by Mark, “but I could not get away. I have brought
you some good news. I think,—that is,—yes, I know there
has been some mistake, some wrong somewhere. Mark
Ray, yesterday afternoon I found,—no matter where or
how—a letter intended for Helen Lennox, which I am
positive she never saw or heard of; at least her denial
to me that a certain Mark Ray had ever offered himself
is a proof that she never saw what was an offer made
just before you went away. I read enough to know that,
and then I took the letter and—”
She hesitated, while Mark's eyes turned dark with excitement,
and even Mrs. Banker, scarcely less interested,
leaned eagerly forward, saying,
“And what? Go on, Miss Cameron. What did you
do with that letter?”
“I sent it to its rightful owner, Helen Lennox. I
posted it myself. But why don't you thank me, Captain
Ray?” she asked, as Mark's face was overshadowed with
anxiety.
“I was wondering whether it were well to send it—
wondering how it might be received,” he said, and Bell
replied.
“She will not answer no. As one woman knows another,
I know Helen Lennox. I have sounded her on
that point. I told her of the rumor there was afloat,
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and she denied it, seeming greatly distressed, but showing
plainly that had such offer been received she would
not have refused it. You should have seen her last
summer, Captain Ray, when we waited so anxiously for
news from the Potomac. Her face was a study as her
eyes ran over the list of casualties, searching not for her
amiable brother-in-law, nor yet for Willard Braxton, their
hired man. It was plain to me as daylight, and all you
have to do is to follow up that letter with another, or go
yourself, if you have time,” Bell said, as she rose to go,
leaving Mark in a state of bewilderment as to what he
had heard.
Who withheld that letter? and why? were questions
which troubled him greatly, nor did his mother's assurance
that it did not matter so long as it all came right
at last, tend wholly to reassure him. One thing, however,
was certain. He would see Helen before he returned
to his regiment. He would telegraph in the
morning to Washington, and then run the risk of being
a day behind the time appointed for his return to duty.
“Suppose you have three children when I return, instead
of two, is there room in your heart for the third?”
he asked his mother when next morning he was about
starting for Silverton.
“Yes, always room for Helen,” was the reply, as with
a kiss of benediction Mrs. Banker sent her boy away.
CHAPTER XLI. CHRISTMAS EVE AT SILVERTON.
THERE was to be a Christmas tree at St.
John's, and all the week the church had been
the scene of much confusion. But the work
was over now; the church was swept and dusted,
the tree with its gay adornings was in its place, the
little ones, who had hindered so much, were gone, as
were their mothers, and Helen only tarried with the
organ boy to play the Christmas Carol, which Katy was
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to sing alone, the children joining in the chorus as they
had been trained to do. It was very quiet there, and
pleasant, with the fading sunlight streaming through the
chancel window, lighting up the cross above it, and falling
softly on the wall where the evergreens were hung
with the sacred words, “Peace on earth and good will
towards men.” And Helen felt the peace stealing over
her as she sat down by the register for a moment ere
going to the organ loft where the boy was waiting for
her. Not even the remembrance of the dark war-cloud
hanging over the land disturbed her then, as her thoughts
went backward eighteen hundred years to Bethlehem's
manger and the little Child whose birth the angels sang.
And as she thought, that Child seemed to be with her,
a living presence to which she prayed, leaning her head
upon the railing of the pew in front, and asking Him to
keep her in the perfect peace she felt around her now.
For Mark Ray, too, she prayed, asking God to keep him
in safety wherever he might be, whether in the lonely
watch, or in some house of God, where the Christmas
carols would be sung and the Christmas story
told.
As she lifted up her head her hand struck against
the pocket of her dress, where lay the letter brought
to her an hour or so ago—Bell's letter—which she had
put aside to read at a more convenient season.
Taking it out, she tore open the envelope, starting
suddenly as another letter, soiled and unsealed, met her
eye. She read Bell's first, and then, with a throbbing
heart, which as yet would not believe, she took up
Mark's, understanding now much that was before mysterious
to her. Juno's call came to her mind, and
though she was unwilling to charge so foul a wrong
upon that young lady, she could find no other solution
to the mystery. There was a glow of indignation—
Helen had scarcely been mortal without it;—but that
passed away in pity for the misguided girl and in joy at
the happiness opening so broadly before her. That
Mark would come to Silverton she had no hope, but he
would write—his letter, perhaps, was even then on the
way; and kissing the one she held, she hid it in her
bosom and went up to where the organ-boy had for
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several minutes been kicking at stools and books, and whistling
Old John Brown by way of attracting attention.
The boy was in a hurry, and asked in so forlorn a tone,
“Is we going to play?” that Helen answered good-humoredly,
“Just a few minutes, Billy. I want to try
the carol and the opening, which I've hardly played at
all.”
With an air of submission Bill took his post and Helen
began to play, but she could only see before her, “I have
loved you ever since that morning when I put the lilies in
your hair,” and played so out of time and tune that Billy
asked, “What makes 'em go so bad?”
“I can't play now; I'm not in the mood,” she said.
“I shall feel better by and by. You can go home if you
like.”
Billy needed no second bidding, but catching up his cap
ran down the stairs and out into the porch, just as up
the steps a young man came hurriedly.
“Hallo, boy,” he cried, grasping the collar of Bill's
roundabout and holding him fast, “who's in the
church?”
“Darn yer, Jim Sykes, you let me be, or I'll—” the
boy began, but when he saw his captor was not Jim Sykes,
but a tall man, wearing a soldier's uniform, he changed
his tone, and answered civilly, “I thought you was Jim
Sykes, the biggest bully in town, who is allus hectorin'
us boys. Nobody is there but she—Miss Lennox—up
where the organ is,” and having given the desired information,
Bill ran off, wondering first if it wasn't Miss Helen's
beau, and wondering next, in case she should sometime
get married in church, if he wouldn't fee the organ-boy
as well as the sexton. “He orto,” Bill soliloquized,
“for I've about blowed my gizzard out sometimes, when
she and Mrs. Cameron sings the Te Deum.”
Meanwhile Mark Ray, who had driven first to the farm-house
in quest of Helen, entered the church, and stole
noiselessly up the stairs to where Helen sat in the dim
light, reading again the precious letter withheld from her
so long. She had moved her stool nearer to the window,
and her back was towards the door, so that she neither
saw, nor heard, nor suspected anything, until Mark,
bending over her so as to see what she had in her hand,
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as well as the tear she had dropped upon it, clasped both
his arms about her neck, and drawing her face over back,
kissed her fondly, calling her his darling, and saying to
her, as she tried to struggle from him,
“I know I have a right to call you darling, by that tear
on my letter, and the look upon your face. Dear Helen,
we have found each other at last.”
It was so unexpected that Helen could not speak, but
she let her head rest on his bosom, where he had laid it,
and her hand crept into his, so that he was answered,
and for a moment he only kissed and caressed the fair
girl he knew now was his own. They could not talk
together very long, for Helen must go home; but he
made good use of the time he had, telling her many
things, and then asking her a question which made her
start away from him as she replied. “No, no, oh! no, not
to night—not so soon as that!”
“And why not, Helen?” he asked, with the manner
of one who was not to be denied. “Why not to-night, so
there need be no more misunderstanding? I'd rather
leave you as my wife than my betrothed. Mother will
like it better. I hinted it to her and she said there was
room for you in her love. It will make me a better man,
and a better soldier, if I can say `my wife,' as other soldiers
do. You don't know what a charm there is in that word,
Helen. It keeps a man from sin, and if I should die I
would rather you should bear my name, and share in my
fortune. Will you, Helen, when the ceremonies are
closed, will you go up to that altar and pledge your
vows to me. I cannot wait till to-morrow; my leave of
absence expires to-day. I must go back to-night, but
you must first be mine.”
Helen was shaking as with a chill, but she made him
no reply, and wrapping her cloak and furs about her,
Mark led her down to the sleigh, and taking his seat
beside her, drove back to the farm-house where the
family were waiting for her. Katy, to whom Mark first
communciated his desire, warmly espoused his cause,
and that went far towards reassuring Helen, who for
some time past had been learning to look up to Katy as
to an older sister, so sober, so earnest, so womanly had
Katy grown since Wilford went away.
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“It is so sudden, and people will talk,” Helen said,
knowing, while she said it, how little she cared for people,
and smiling at Katy's reply.
“They may as well talk about you awhile as me. It
is not so bad when once you are used to it.”
After Katy, Aunt Betsy was Mark's best advocate.
It is true this was not just what she had expected when
Helen was married. The infair which Wilford had declined
was still in Aunt Betsy's mind; but that, she reflected,
might be yet. If Mark went back on the next
train there could be no proper wedding party until his
return, when the loaves of frosted cake, and the baked
fowls she had seen in imagination should be there in
real, tangible form, and as she expressed it they would
have a “high.” Accordingly she threw herself into the
scale beginning to balance in favor of Mark, and when
at last old Whitey stood at the door, ready to take the
family to the church, Helen sat upon the lounge listening
half bewildered while Katy assured her that she
could play the voluntary, even if she had not looked at
it, that she could lead the children without the organ,
and in short do everything Helen was expected to do
except go to the altar with Mark.
“That I leave for you,” and she playfully kissed Helen's
forehead, as she tripped from the room, looking
back when she reached the door, and charging the lovers
not to forget to come, in their absorption of each
other.
St. John's was crowded that night, the children occupying
the front seat, with looks of expectancy upon their
faces, as they studied the heavily laden tree, the boys wondering
if that ball, or whistle, or wheelbarrow was for them,
and the girls appropriating the tastefully-dressed dolls
showing so conspicuously among the dark green foliage.
The Barlows were rather late, for upon Uncle Ephraim
devolved the duty of seeing to the license, and as he had
no seat in that house, his arrival was only known by Aunt
Betsy's elbowing her way to the front, and near to the
Christmas tree which she had helped to dress, just as she
had helped to trim the church. She did not believe in such
“flummeries” it is true, and she classed them with the
“quirks,” but rather than “see the gals slave themselves
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to death,” she had this year lent a helping hand. Donning
two shawls, a camlet cloak, a knit scarf for her head,
and a hood to keep from catching cold, she had worked
early and late, fashioning the most wonderfully shaped
wreaths, tying up festoons, and even trying her hand at
a triangle; she turned her back resolutely upon crosses,
which were more than her Puritanism could endure.
The cross was a “quirk,” with which she'd have nothing
to do, though once, when Katy seemed more than usually
bothered and wished somebody would hand her tacks,
Aunt Betsy relented so far as to bring the hoop she was
winding close to Katy, holding the little nails in her
mouth, and giving them out as they were wanted; but
with each one given out, conscientiously turning her
head away, lest her eyes should fall upon what she conceived
the symbol of the Romish Church. But when the
whole was done, none were louder in their praises than
Aunt Betsy, who was guilty of asking Mrs. Deacon Bannister,
when she came in to inspect, “why the Orthodox
couldn't get up some such doin's for their Sunday school.
It pleased the children mightily.”
But Mrs. Deacon Bannister answered with some
severity,
“We don't believe in shows and plays, you know,”
thus giving a double thrust, and showing that the opera
had never been quite forgotten. “Here's a pair of skates,
though, and a smellin' bottle I'd like to have put on for
John and Sylvia,” she added, handing her package to
Aunt Betsy, who, while seeing the skates and smelling
bottle suspended from a bough, was guilty of wondering
if “the partaker wasn't most as bad as the thief.”
This was in the afternoon, and was all forgotten now,
when with her Sunday clothes she never would have
worn in that jam but for the great occasion, Aunt Betsy
elbowed her way up the middle aisle, her face wearing a
very important and knowing look, especially when Uncle
Ephraim's tall figure bent for a moment under the hemlock
boughs, and then disappeared in the little vestry
room where he held a private consultation with the rector.
That she knew something her neighbors didn't was evident,
but she kept it to herself, turning her head occasionally
to look up at the organ where Katy was presiding.
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Others too, there were, who turned their heads as the
soft music began to fill the church, and the heavy bass
rolled up the aisles, making the floor tremble beneath
their feet and sending a thrill through every vein. It
was a skillful hand which swept the keys that night,
for Katy played with her whole soul—not the voluntary
there before her in printed form, nor any one thing she
had ever heard, but taking parts of many things, and
mingling them with strains of her own improvising she
filled the house as it had never been filled before, playing
a soft, sweet refrain when she thought of Helen, then
bursting into louder, fuller tones, when she remembered
Bethlehem's Child and the song the angels sang, and then
as she recalled her own sad life since she knelt at the
altar a happy bride, the organ notes seemed much like
human sobs, now rising to a stormy pitch of passion,
wild and uncontrolled, and then dying out as dies the
summer wind after a fearful storm. Awed and wonderstruck
the organ boy looked at Katy as she played, almost
forgetting his part of the performance in his amazement,
and saying to himself when she had finished,
“Guy, ain't she a brick?” and whispering to her, “Didn't
we go that strong?”
The people had wondered where Helen was, as, without
the aid of music, Katy led the children in their
carols, and this wonder increased when it was whispered
round that “Miss Lennox had come, and was standing
with a man back by the register.”
After this Aunt Betsy grew very calm, and could
enjoy the distributing of the gifts, going up herself two
or three times, and wondering why anybody should
think of her, a good-for-nothing old woman. The skates
and the smelling bottle both went safely to Sylvia and John,
while Mrs. Deacon Bannister looked radiant when her
name was called and she was made the recipient of a jar
of butternut pickles, such as only Aunt Betsy Barlow
could make.
“Miss Helen Lennox. A soldier in uniform, from one
of her Sunday-school scholars,”
The words rang out loud and clear, as the Rector held
up the sugar toy before the amused audience, who
turned to look at Helen, blushing so painfully, and
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trying to hold back the man in a soldier's dress who went
quietly up the aisle, receiving the gift with a bow and
smile which turned the heads of half the ladies near
him, and then went back to Helen, to whom he whispered
something which made her cheeks grow brighter
than they were before, while she dropped her eyes modestly.
“Who is he?” a woman asked, touching Aunt Betsy's
shoulder.
“Captain Ray, from New York,” was the answer, as
Aunt Betsy gave to her dress a little broader sweep, and
smoothed the bow she had tried to tie beneath her chin,
just as Mattie Tubbs had tied it on the memorable opera
night.
The tree, by this time, was nearly empty. Every child
had been remembered, save one, and that the organ boy,
who, separated from his companions, stood near Helen,
watching the tree wistfully, while shadows of hope and
disappointment passed alternately over his face, as one
after another the presents were distributed and nothing
came to him.
“There ain't a darned thing on it for me,” he exclaimed
at last, when boy nature could endure no longer; and
Mark turned towards him just in time to see the gathering
mist, which but for the most heroic efforts would
have merged into tears.
“Poor Billy!” Helen said, as she too heard his comment,
“I fear he has been forgotten. His teacher is
absent, and he so faithful at the organ too.”
Mark knew now who the boy was, and after a hurried
consultation with Helen, who suggested that money
would probably be more acceptable than even skates or
jack-knives, neither of which were possible now, folded
something in a bit of paper, on which he wrote a name,
and then sent it to the Rector.
“Billy Brown, our faithful organ boy,” sounded
through the church; and with a brightened face Billy
went up the aisle and received the little package, ascertaining
before he reached his standpoint near the door,
that he was the owner of a five dollar bill, and mentally
deciding to add both peanuts and molasses candy to the
stock of apples he daily carried into the cars.
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“You gin me this,” he said, nodding to Mark, “and
you,” turning to Helen, “poked him up to it.”
“Well then, if I did,” Mark replied, laying his hand
on the boy's coarse hair, “you must take good care of
Miss Lennox when I am gone. I leave her in your
charge. She is to be my wife.”
“Gorry, I thought so;” and Bill's cap went towards
the plastering, just as the last string of pop-corn was
given from the tree, and the exercises were about to
close.
It was not in Aunt Betsy's nature to keep her secret
till this time; and simultaneously with Billy's going up
for his gift, she whispered it to her neighbor, who whispered
it to hers, who whispered it to hers, until nearly all
the audience knew of it, and kept their seats after the
benediction was pronounced.
At a sign from the rector, Katy went with her mother
to the altar, followed by Uncle Ephraim, his wife, and
Aunt Betsy, while Helen, throwing off the cloud she had
worn upon her head, and giving it, with her cloak and
fur, into Billy's charge, took Mark's arm, and with beating
heart and burning cheeks passed between the sea of
eyes fixed so curiously upon her, up to where Katy once
stood on the June morning, when she had been the
bride. Not now, as then, were aching hearts present at
the bridal. No Marian Hazelton fainted by the door;
no Morris felt the world grow dark and desolate as the
marriage vows were spoken; and no sister doubted if it
were all right and would end in happiness.
The ceremony lasted but a few moments, and then the
astonished audience pressed around the bride, offering
their kindly congratulations, and proving to Mark Ray
that the bride he had won was dear to others as well as
to himself. Lovingly he drew her hand beneath his arm,
fondly he looked down upon her as he led her back to
her chair by the register, making her sit down while he
tied on her cloak, and adjusted the fur about her neck.
“Handy and gentle as a woman,” was the verdict pronounced
upon him by the female portion of the congregation,
as they passed out into the street, talking of the
ceremony, and contrasting Helen's husband with the
haughty Wilford, who was not a favorite with them.
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It was Billy Brown who brought Mark's cutter round,
and held the reins, while Mark helped Helen in, and then
he tucked the buffalo robes about her with the remark,
“It's all-fired cold, Miss Ray. Shall you play in church
to-morrow?”
Assured that she would, Billy walked away, and Mark
was alone with his bride, and slowly following the deacon's
sleigh, which reached the farm-house a long time
before the little cutter, so that a fire was already kindled
in the parlor when Helen arrived, and also in the kitchen
stove, where the tea-kettle was boiling; for Aunt
Betsy said “the chap should have some supper before he
went back to York.”
Four hours he had to stay, and they were spent in
talking of himself, of Wilford, and of Morris, and in planning
Helen's future. Of course she would spend a portion
of her time at the farm-house, he said; but his
mother had a claim upon her, and it was his wish that
she should be in New York as much as possible.
Swiftly the last moments went by, and a “Merry
Christmas” was said by one and another as they took
their seats at the plentiful repast Aunt Betsy had provided,
Mark feasting more on Helen's face than on the
viands spread before him. It was hard for him to leave
her, hard for her to let him go; but the duty was imperative,
and so when at last the frosty air grew keener as
the small hours of night crept on, he stood with his arms
about her, nor thought it unworthy of a soldier that his
own tears mingled with hers, as he bade her good-bye,
kissing her again and again, and calling her his precious
wife, whose memory would make his camp life brighter,
and shorten the days of absence. There was no one with
them, when at last Mark's horse dashed from the yard
over the creaking snow, leaving Helen alone upon the
doorstep, with the glittering stars shining above her
head, and her husband's farewell kiss wet upon her lips.
“When shall we meet again?” she sobbed, gazing up
at the clear blue sky, as if to find the answer there.
But only the December wind sweeping down from the
steep hillside, and blowing across her forehead, made
reply to that questioning, as she waited till the last
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faint sound of Mark Ray's bells died away in the distance,
and then, shivering with cold, re-entered the farm-house.
CHAPTER XLII. AFTER CHRISTMAS EVE.
MERRILY rang the bells next day, but Helen's
heart was very sas as she met the smiling faces
of her friends, and Mark had never been prayed
for more earnestly than on that Christmas
morning, when Helen knelt at the altar rail, and received
the sacred symbols of a Saviour's dying love, asking that
God would keep the soldier husband, hastening on to
New York, and from thence to Washington. Much the
Silvertonians discussed the wedding, and had Helen been
the queen, she could hardly have been stared at more
curiously than she was that Christmas day, when late in
the afternoon she drove through the town with Katy, the
villagers looking admiringly after her, noting the tie
of her bonnet, the arrangement of her face trimmings,
and discovering in both a style and fitness they had
never discovered before. As the wife of Mark Ray, Helen
became suddenly a heroine, in whose presence poor
Katy subsided completely; nor was the interest at all
diminished when, two days later, Mrs. Banker came to
Silverton and was met at the depot by Helen, whom she
hugged affectionately, calling her “my dear daughter,”
and holding her hand all the way to the covered sleigh
waiting there for her.
Mrs. Banker was very fond of Helen; and not even the
sight of the farm-house, with its unpolished inmates,
awakened a feeling of regreat that her only son had not
looked higher for a wife. She was satisfied with her
new daughter, and insisted upon taking her back to New
York.
“I am very lonely now, lonelier than you can possibly
be,” she said to Mrs. Lennox, “and you will not refuse
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her to me for a few weeks at least. It will do us both
good, and make the time of Mark's absence so much
shorter.”
“Yes, mother, let Helen go. I will try to fill her
place,” Katy said, though while she said it her heart
throbbed with pain and dread as she thought how desolate
she should be without her sister.
But it was right, and Katy urged Helen's going, bearing
up bravely so long as Helen was in sight, but shedding
bitter tears when at last she was gone, tears which
were only stayed when kind old Uncle Ephraim offered to
take her to the little grave, where, from experience, he
knew she always found rest and peace. The winter
snows were on it now, but Katy knew just where the
daisies were, and the blue violets which with the spring
would bloom again, feeling comforted as she thought of
that eternal spring in the bright world above, where her
child had gone. And so that night, when they gathered
again around the fire in the pleasant little parlor, the
mother and the old people did not miss Helen half so
much as they had feared they might, for Katy sang her
sweetest songs and wore her sunniest smile, while she
told them of Helen's new home, and talked of whatever
else she thought would interest and please them.
“Little Sunbeam,” Uncle Ephraim called her now, instead
of “Katty-did,” and in his prayer that first night of
Helen's absence he asked, in his touching way, “that
God would bless his little Sunbeam, and not let her
grow tired of living there alone with folks so odd and
old.”
“Married—On Christmas Eve, at St. John's Church, Silverton,
Mass., by the Rev. Mr. Kelly, Capt. Mark Ray, of the —th Regiment,
N. Y. S. Vols., to Miss Helen Lennox, of Silverton.”
Such was the announcement which appeared in several
of the New York papers two days after Christmas,
and such the announcement which Bell Cameron read at
the breakfast table on the morning of the day when Mrs.
Banker started for Silverton.
“Here is something which will perhaps interest you,”
she said, passing the paper to Juno, who had come down
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late, and was looking cross and jaded from the effects of
last night's dissipation.
Taking the paper from her sister's hand, Juno glanced
at the paragraph indicated by Bell; then, as she caught
Mark's name, she glanced again with a startled, incredulous
look, her cheeks and lips turning white as she read
that Mark Ray was lost to her forever, and that in
spite of the stolen letter Helen Lennox was his wife.
“What is it, Juno?” Mrs. Cameron asked, noticing her
daughter's agitation.
Juno told her what it was, and then handing her the
paper let her read it for herself.
“Impossible! there is some mistake! How was it
brought about?” Mrs. Cameron said, darting a curious
glance at Bell, whose face betrayed nothing as she leisurely
sipped her coffee and remarked, “I always thought it
would come to this, for I knew he liked her. It is a
splendid match.”
Whatever Juno thought she kept it to herself, just as
she kept her room the entire day, complaining of a racking
headache, and ordering the curtains to be dropped, as
the light hurt her eyes, she said to Bell, who, really pitying
her now, never suggested that the darkened room
was more to hide her tears than to save her eyes, and
who sent away all callers with the message that Juno
was sick—all but Sybil Grandon, who insisted so hard
upon seeing her dear friend that she was admitted to
Juno's room, talking at once of the wedding, and making
every one of Juno's nerves quiver with pain as she descanted
upon the splendid match it was for Helen, or indeed
for any girl.
“I had given you to him,” she said, “but I see I was
mistaken. It was Helen he preferred, unless you jilted
him, as perhaps you did.”
Here was a temptation Juno could not resist, and she
replied, haughtily,
“I am not one to boast of conquests, but ask Captain
Ray himself if you wish to know why I did not marry
him.”
Sybil Grandon was not deceived, but she good-naturedly
suffered that young lady to hope she was, and answered,
laughingly, “I can't say I honor your judgment in
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refusing him, but you know best. However, I trust that
will not prevent your friendly advances towards his
bride. Mrs. Banker has gone after her, I understand,
and I want you to call with me as soon as convenient.
Mrs. Mark Ray will be the belle of the season, depend
upon it,” and gathering up her furs Mrs. Grandon kissed
Juno affectionately and then swept from the room.
That Mrs. Cameron had hunted for and failed to find
the stolen letter, and that she associated its disappearance
with Mark Ray's sudden marriage, Bell was very sure,
from the dark, anxious look upon her face when she came
from her room, whither she had repaired immediately
after breakfast; but whatever her suspicions were, they
did not find form in words. Mark was lost. It was too
late to help that now, and as a politic woman of the
world, Mrs. Cameron decided to let the matter rest, and
by patronizing the young bride prove that she had never
thought of Mark Ray for her son-in-law. Hence it was
that the Cameron carriage and the Grandon carriage
stood together before Mrs. Banker's door, while the ladies
who had come in the carriages paid their respects to
Mrs. Ray, rallying her upon the march she had stolen
upon them, telling her how delighted they were to have
her back again, and hoping they should see each other
a great deal during the coming winter.
The Camerons and Sybil Grandon were not alone in
calling upon the bride. Those who had liked Helen
Lennox did not find her less desirable now that she was
Helen Ray, and numberless were the attentions bestowed
upon her and the invitations she received.
But with few exceptions Helen declined the latter, feeling
that with her husband in so much danger, it was better
not to mingle in gay society. She was very happy
with Mrs. Banker, who petted and caressed and loved
her almost as much as if she had been her own daughter.
Mark's letters, too, which came nearly every day, were
bright sun-spots in her existence, so full were they of
tender love and kind thoughtfulness for her. He was
very happy, he wrote, in knowing that at home there was
a dear little brown-haired wife, waiting and praying for
him, and but for the separation from her he was well content
with a soldier's life. Once Helen thought
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seriously of going to him for a week or more, but the project
was prevented by the sudden arrival in New York of
Katy, who came one night to Mrs. Banker's, with her face
as white as ashes, and a wild expression in her eyes as she
said to Helen,
“I am going to Wilford. He is dying. He has sent
for me. I ought to go on to-night, but cannot, my head
aches so,” and pressing both her hands upon her head
Katy sank fainting into Helen's arms.
CHAPTER XLIII. GEORGETOWN HOSPITAL.
Georgetown, February —, 1862.
MRS. WILFORD CAMERON:
Your husband cannot live long. Come immediately.
M. Hazelton.”
So read the telegram received by Katy one winter morning,
and which stunned her for a few minutes so that she
could neither feel nor think. But the reaction came soon
enough, bringing with it only the remembrance of Wilford's
love. All the wrong, the harshness, was forgotten,
and only the desire remained to fly at once to Wilford.
Bravely she kept up until New York was reached, when
the tension of her nerves gave way, and she fainted, as
we have seen.
At Father Cameron's a telegram had been received,
telling of Wilford's danger. But the mother could not
go to him. A lung difficulty, to which she was subject,
had confined her to the house for many days, and so it
was the father and Bell who made their hasty preparations
for the hurried journey to Georgetown. They
heard of Katy's arrival, and Bell came at once to see
her.
“She will not be able to join us to-morrow,” was the
report Bell carried home, for she saw more than mere exhaustion
in the white face lying so motionless on Helen's
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pillow, with the dark rings about the eyes, and the quiver
of the muscles about the mouth.
“It is very hard, but God knows best,” poor Katy
moaned, when the next day her father and Bell went
without her.
“Yes, darling, God knows best,” Helen answered,
smoothing the bright hair, and thinking sadly of the
young officer sitting by his camp-fire, and waiting so
eagerly for the bride who could not go to him now.
“God knows what is best, and does all for the best.”
Katy said it many times that long, long week, during
which she staid with Helen, living from day to day upon
the letters sent by Bell, who gave but little hope that
Wilford would recover. Not a word did she say of Marian,
and only twice did she mention Morris, who was
one of the physicians in that hospital, so that when at
last Katy was strong enough to venture on the journey,
she had but little idea of what had transpired in Wilford's
sick room.
Those were sad, weary days which Wilford first passed
upon his hospital cot, and as he was not sick but crippled,
he had ample time for reviewing the past, which
came up before his mind as vividly as if he had been living
again the scenes of bygone days. Of Katy he
thought continually, repenting of his rashness, and wishing
so much that the past could be undone. Disgusted
with soldier life, he had wished himself at home a thousand
times, but never by a word had he admitted such a
wish to any living being, and when, on the dark, rainy
afternoon which first saw him in the hospital, he turned
his face to the wall and wept, he replied to one who
said to him soothingly,
“Don't feel badly, my young friend. We will take as
good care of you here as if you were at home.”
“It's the pain which brings the tears. I'd as soon be
here as at home.”
Gradually, however, there came a change, and Wilford
grew softer in his feelings, half resolving to send
for Katy, who had offered to come, and to whom he had
replied, “It is not necessary.” But as often as he resolved,
his evil genius whispered, “She does not care to
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come,” and so the message was never sent, while the
longing for home faces brought on a nervous fever,
which made him so irritable that his attendants turned
from him in disgust, thinking him the most unreasonable
man they ever met with. Once he dreamed Genevra
was there—that her fingers threaded his hair as they
used to do in the happy days at Brighton—that her
hand was on his brow, her breath upon his face, and
with a start he awoke just as the rustle of female garments
died away in the hall.
“The nurse in the second ward has been in here,” a
comrade said. “She seemed specially interested in you,
and if she had not been a stranger, I should have said
she was crying over you.”
With a quick, sudden movement, Wilford put his hand
to his cheek, where there was a tear, either his own or that
of the “nurse,” who had recently bent over him. Retaining
the same proud reserve which had characterized his
whole life, he asked no questions, but listened to what
his companions were saying of the beauty and tenderness
of the “young girl,” as they called her, who had glided
for a few moments into their presence, winning their
hearts in that short space of time, and making them
wish she would come back again. Wilford wished so
too, conjuring up all sorts of conjectures about the unknown
nurse, and once going so far as to fancy it was
Katy herself. But Katy would hardly venture there as
nurse, and if she did she would not keep aloof from
him. It was not Katy, and if not, who was it that twice
when he was sleeping came and looked at him, his comrades
said, rallying him upon the conquest he had made,
and so exciting his imagination that the fever began to
increase, and the blood throbbed hotly through his
veins, while his brows were knit together with thoughts
of the mysterious stranger. Then, with a great shock it
occurred to him that Katy had affirmed, “Genevra is
alive.”
What if it were so, and this nurse were Genevra?
The very idea fired Wilford's brain, and when next
his physician came he looked with alarm upon the great
change for the worse exhibited by his patient.
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“Shall I send for your friends?” he asked, and Wilford
answered, savagely,
“I have no friends—none at least, but what will be
glad to know I'm dead.”
And that was the last, except the wild words of a
maniac, which came from Wilford's lips for many a day
and night. When they said he was unconscious, Marian
Hazelton obtained permission to attend him, and again
the eyes of the other occupants of the room were turned
wonderingly towards her as she bent over the sick man,
parting his matted hair, smoothing his pillow, and holding
the cooling draught to the parched lips which muttered
strange things of Brighton, of Alnwick and Rome—
of the heather on the Scottish moors, and the daisies
on Genevra's grave, where Katy once sat down.
“She did not know Genevra was there,” he said; “but
I knew, and I felt as if the dead were wronged by that
act of Katy's. Do you know Katy?” and his black eyes
fastened upon Marian, who, soothed him into quiet, while
she talked to him of Katy, telling of her graceful beauty,
her loving heart, and the sorrow she would feel when she
heard how sick he was.
“Shall I send for her?” she asked, but Wilford answered,
“No, I am satisfied with you.”
This was her first day with him, but there were other
days when all her strength, and that of Morris, who, at
at her earnest solicitation, came to her aid, was required
to keep him on his bed. He was going home, he said,
going to Katy; and like a giant he writhed under a
force superior to his own, and which held him down and
controlled him, while his loud outcries filled the building,
and send a shudder to the hearts of those who heard
them. As the two men, who at first had occupied the
room with him, were well enough to leave for home, Marian
and Morris both begged that, unless absolutely necessary,
no other one should be sent to that small
apartment, where all the air was needed for the patient
in their charge. And thus the room was left alone for
Wilford, who grew worse so fast that Marian telegraphed
to Katy, bidding her come at once.
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Slowly the wintry night was passing, the fifth since
Marian's message was sent to Katy, and Morris sat by
Wilford's cot, when suddenly he met Wilford's eyes fixed
upon him with a look of recognition he could not mistake.
“Do you know me?” he asked so kindly, and with so
much of genuine sympathy in his voice, that the heavy
eyelids quivered for an instant, as Wilford nodded his
head, and whispered,
“Dr. Grant.”
There had been a momentary flash of resentment when
he saw the watcher beside him, but Wilford was too
weak, too helpless to cherish that feeling long, and besides
there were floating through his still bewildered
mind visions of some friendly hand, which had ministered
to him daily—of a voice and form, distinct from the one
he thought an angel's, and which was not there now with
him. That voice, that form, he felt sure belonged to
Morris Grant, and remembering his past harshness
toward him, a chord of gratitude was touched, and
when Morris took his hand he did not at once withdraw
it, but let his long, white fingers cling around the warm,
vigorous ones, which seemed to impart new life and
strength.
“You have been very sick,” Morris said, anticipating
the question Wilford would ask. “You are very sick
still, and at the request of your nurse I came to attend
you.”
A pressure of the hand was Wilford's reply, and then
there was silence between them, while Wilford mastered
all his pride, and with quivering lips whispered,
“Katy!”
“We have sent for her. We expect her every train,”
Morris replied, and Wilford asked,
“Who has been with me—the nurse, I mean? Who is
she?”
Morris hesitated a moment, and then said,
“Marian Hazelton.”
“I know—yes,” Wilford replied, having no suspicion
as to who was standing outside his door, and listening,
with a throbbing heart, to his rational questions.
In all their vigils held together no sign had ever passed
from Dr. Grant to Marian that he knew her, but he had
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waited anxiously for this moment, knowing that Wilford
must not be shocked, as a sight of Marian would shock him.
He knew she was outside the door, and as Wilford turned
his head upon the pillow, he went to her, and leading her
to a safe distance, said softly,
“His reason has returned.”
“And my services are ended,” Marian rejoined, looking
him steadily in the face, but not in the least prepared for
his affirmative question.
“You are Genevra Lambert?”
There was a low, gasping sound of surprise, and Marian
staggered forward a step or too, then steadying herself,
she said.
“And if I am, it surely is not best for him to see me.
You would not advise it?”
She looked wistfully at Morris, the great desire to be
recognized, to be spoken to kindly by the man who once
had been her husband overmastering for a moment all
her prudence.
“It would not be best, both for his sake and Katy's,”
Morris said, and with a moan like the dying out of her
last hope, Marian turned away, her eyes dim with tears
and her heart heavy with a sense of something lost, as in
the grey dawn of the morning she went back to her
former patients, who hailed her coming with childish joy,
one fair young boy from the Granite hills kissing the
hand which bandaged his poor crushed arm so tenderly,
and thanking her that she had returned to him again.
“Mr. J. Cameron, Miss Bell Cameron,” were the names
on the cards sent to Dr. Grant late that afternoon, and in
a few moments he was with the father and sister who asked
so anxiously for Wilford and explained why Katy was
not with them.
Wilford was sleeping when they entered his room, his
face looking so worn and thin, and his hands folded so
helplessly upon his breast, that with a gush of tears Bell
knelt beside him, and laying her warm cheek against his
bony one, woke him with her sobs. For a moment he
seemed bewildered, then recognizing her, he raised his
feeble arm and winding it about her neck, kissed her
more tenderly than he had ever done before. He had not
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been demonstrative of his affection for his sisters. But
Bell was his favorite, and he held her close to him while
his eyes moved past his father, whom he did not see, on
to the door as if in quest of some one. It was Katy, and
guessing his thoughts, Bell said,
“She is not here. She could not come now. She is
sick in New York, but will join us in a few days.”
There was a look of intense disappointment in Wilford's
face, which even his father's warm greeting could not
dissipate, and Morris saw the great tears as they dropped
upon the pillow, the proud man trying hard to repress
them, and asking no questions concerning any one at
home. He was too weak to talk, but he held Bell's hand
in his as if afraid that she would leave him, while his eyes
rested alternately upon her face and that of his father,
who, wholly unmanned at the fearful change in his son,
laid his head upon the bed and cried aloud.
Next morning Bell was very white and her voice
trembled as she came from a conference with Dr. Morris,
who had told her that her brother would die.
“He may live a week, and he may not,” he said, adding
solemnly, “As his sister you will tell him of his danger,
while there is time to seek the refuge without which
death is terrible.”
“Oh, if I could only pray with and for him!” Bell
thought, as she went to her brother, mourning her misspent
days, and feeling her courage giving way when at
last she stood in his presence and met his kindly smile.
“I dreamed that you were not here after all,” he said,
“I am so glad to find it real. How long before I can go
home, do you suppose?”
He had stumbled upon the very thing Bell was there
to talk about, his question indicating that he had no suspicion
of the truth. Nor had he; and it came like a
thunderbolt when Bell, forgetting all her prudence, said
impetuously,
“Oh, Wilford, maybe you'll never go home. Maybe
you'll—”
“Not die,” Wilford exclaimed, clasping his hands with
sudden emotion. “Not die—you don't mean that? Who
told you so?”
“Dr. Grant,” was Billy's reply, which brought a fierce
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frown to Wilford's face, and awoke all the angry passions
of his heart.
“Dr. Grant,” he repeated. “He would like me removed
from his path; but it shall not be. I will not
die. Tell him that. I will not die,” and Wilford's voice
was hoarse with passion as he raised his clenched fists in
the air.
He was terribly excited, and in her fright Bell ran for
Dr. Grant. But Wilford motioned him back, hurling
after him words which kept him from the room the entire
day, while the sick man rolled, and tossed, and raved in
the delirium, which had returned, and which wore him
out so fast. No one had the least influence over him,
except Marian Hazelton, who, without a glance at Mr.
Cameron or Bell, glided to his side, and with her presence
and gentle words soothed him into comparative quiet, so
that the bitter denunciations against the saint, who
wanted him to die, ceased, and he fell into a troubled
sleep.
With a strange feeling of interest Mr. Cameron and
Bell watched her, wondering if she were indeed Genevra,
as Katy had affirmed. They would not ask her; and
both breathed more freely when, with a bow in acknowledgment
of Mr. Cameron's compliment to her skill in
quieting his son, she left the room.
That night they watched with Wilford, who slept off
his delirium, and lay with his face turned from them, so
that they could not guess by its expression what was
passing in his mind.
All the next day he maintained the most frigid silence,
answering only in monosyllables, while Bell kept wiping
away the great drops of sweat constantly oozing out upon
his forehead and about the pallid lips.
Just at nightfall he startled Bell by asking that Dr.
Grant be sent for.
“Please leave me alone with him,” he said, when Dr.
Morris came; then turning to Morris, as the door closed
upon his father and his sister, he said abruptly,
“Pray for me, if you can pray for one who yesterday
hated you so for saying he must die.”
Earnestly, fervently, Morris prayed, as for a dear
brother; and when he finished, Wilford's faint “Amen”
sounded through the room.
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“I am not right yet,” the pale lips whispered, as Morris
sat down beside him. “Not right with God, I mean.
I've sometimes said there was no God; but I did not believe
it; and now I know there is. He has been moving
upon me all the day, driving out my bitterness toward
you, and causing me to send for you at last. Do you
think there is hope for me? I have much to be forgiven.”
“Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white
as snow,” Morris replied; and then he tried to point that
erring man to the Lamb of God, who taketh away the
sins of the world, convincing him that there was hope
even for him, and leaving him with the conviction that
God would surely finish the good work begun, nor suffer
this soul to be lost which had turned to Him at the
eleventh hour.
Wilford knew his days were numbered, and he talked
freely of it to his father and sister the next morning when
they came to him. He did not say that he was ready or
willing to die, only that he must, and he asked them to
forget, when he was gone, all that had ever been amiss
in him as a son and brother.
“I was too proud, too selfish, to make others happy,”
he said “I thought it all over yesterday, and the past
came back again so vividly, especially the part connected
with Katy. Oh, Katy, I did abuse her!” and a bitter sob
attested the genuineness of Wilford's grief for his treatment
of Katy. “I despised her family, I treated them
with contempt. I broke Katy's heart, and now I must
die without telling her I am sorry. But you'll tell her,
Bell, how I tried to pray, but could not for thoughts of
my sin to her. She will not be glad that I am dead. I
know her better than to think that; and I believe she
loves me. But, after I am gone, and the duties of the
world have closed up the gap I shall leave, I see, a
brighter future for her than her past has been; and you
may tell her I am—” He could not say “I am willing.”
Few husbands could have done so then, and he was not
an exception.
Wholly exhausted, he lay quiet for a moment, and
when he spoke again, it was of Genevra. Even here he
did not try to screen himself. He was the one to blame,
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[figure description] Page 361.[end figure description]
he said, Genevra was true, was innocent, as he ascertained
too late.
“Would you like to see her, if she was living?” came
to Bell's lips; but the fear that it would be too great a
shock, prevented their utterance.
He had no suspicion of her presence; and it was best
he should not. Katy was the one uppermost in his mind;
and in the letter Bell sent to her next day, he tried to
write, “Good-bye, my darling;” but the words were
scarcely legible, and his nerveless hand fell helpless at
his side as he said,
“She will never know the effort it cost me, nor hear
me say that I hope I am forgiven. It came to me last
night; and now the way is not so dark, but Katy will not
know.”
CHAPTER XLIV. LAST HOURS.
KATY would know; for she was coming at last. A
telegram had announced that she was on the road;
and with nervous restlessness Wilford asked repeatedly
what time it was, reducing the hours to minnutes,
and counting his own pulses to see if he could
last so long.
“Save me, Doctor,” he whispered to Morris, “keep me
alive till Katy comes. I must see Katy again.”
And Morris, tenderer than a brother, did all he could
to keep the feeble breath from going out ere Katy came.
The train was due at five; but it was dark in the hospital,
and from every window a light was shining, when
Morris carried, rather than led, a quivering figure up the
stairs and through the hall to the room where the Camerons
were, the father standing at the foot of Wilford's
bed, and Bell bending over his pillow, administering the
stimulants which kept her brother alive. When Katy
came in, she moved away, as did her father, while Morris
too stepped back into the hall; and thus the husband and
wife were left alone.
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“Katy, precious Katy, you have forgiven me?” Wilford
whispered, and the rain of tears and kisses on his face
was Katy's answer as she hung over him.
She had forgiven him, and she told him so when she
found voice to talk, wondering to find him so changed
from the proud, exacting, self-worshiping man to the
humble, repentant and self-accusing person, who took all
blame of the past to himself, and exonerated her from
every fault. But when he drew her close to him, and
whispered something in her ear, she knew whence came
the change, and a reverent “Thank the good Father,”
dropped from her lips.
“The way was dark and thorny,” Wilford said, making
her sit down where he could see her as he talked, “and
only for God's goodness I should have lost the path.
But he sent Morris Grant to point the road, and I trust
I am in it now. I wanted to tell you with my own lips
how sorry I am for what I have made you suffer; but
sorriest of all for sending Baby away. Oh, Katy, you do
not know how that rested upon my conscience. Forgive
me, Katy, that I robbed you of your child.”
He was growing very weak, and he looked so white
and ghastly that Katy called for Bell, who came with her
father, and the three stood together around the bedside
of the dying.
“You will remember me, Katy,” he said, “but you
cannot mourn for me always, and sometime in the future
you will cease to be my widow, and, Katy, I am willing.
I wanted to tell you this, so that no thought of me
should keep you from a life where you will be happier
than I have made you.”
Wholly bewildered, Katy made no reply, and Wilford
was silent a few moments, in which he seemed partially
asleep. Then rousing up, he said,
“You said once that Genevra was not dead. Did you
mean it, Katy?”
Frightened and bewildered, Katy turned appealingly to
her father-in-law, who answered for her, “She meant it—
Genevra is not dead,” while a blood-red flush stained
Wilford's face, and his fingers beat the bedspread thoughtfully.
“I fancied once that she was here—that she was the
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nurse the boys praise so much. But that was a delusion,”
he said, and without a thought of the result, Katy asked
impetuously, “if she were here would you care to see
her?”
There was a startled look on Wilford's face, and he
grasped Katy's hand nervously, his frame trembling with
a dread of the great shock which he felt impending over
him.
“Is she here? Was the nurse Genevra?” he asked.
Then, as his mind went back to the past, he answered his
own question by asserting “Marian Hazelton is Genevra.”
They did not contradict him, nor did he ask to see her.
With Katy there he felt he had better not; but after a
moment he continued, “It is all so strange. I thought
her dead. I do not comprehend how it can be. She has
been kind to me. Tell her I thank her for it. I was unjust
to her. I have much to answer for.”
Between each word he uttered there was a gasp for
breath, and Father Cameron opened the window to admit
the cool night air. But nothing had power to revive
him. He was going very fast, Morris said, as he took his
stand by the bedside and watched the approach of death.
There were no convulsive struggles, only heavy breathings,
which grew farther and farther apart, until at last
Wilford drew Katy close to him, and winding his arm
around her neck, whispered,
“I am almost home, my darling, and all is well. Be
kind to Genevra for my sake. I loved her once, but not
as I love you.”
He never spoke again, and a few minutes later Morris
led Katy from the room, and then went out to give orders
for the embalming.
In the little room she called her own, Marian Hazelton
sat, her beautiful hair disordered, and her eyes dim
with the tears she had shed. She knew that Wilford was
dead, and as if his dying had brought back all her olden
love she wept bitterly for the man who had so darkened
her life. She had not expected to see him with Katy
present; but now that it was over she might go to him.
There could be no harm in that. No one but Morris
would know who she was, she thought, when there came
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a timid knock upon her door, and Katy entered, her face
very pale, and her manner very calm, as she came to Marian,
and kneeling down beside her, laid her head in her
lap with the air of a weary child who has sought its
mother for rest.
“Poor little Katy!” Marian said; “your husband, they
tell me, is dead.”
“Yes;” and Katy lifted up her head, and fixing her
eyes earnestly upon Marian, continued, “Wilford is dead,
but before he died he left a message for Genevra Lambert.
Will she hear it now?”
With a sudden start Marian sprang to her feet, and demanded,
“Who told you of Genevra Lambert?”
“Wilford told me months ago, showing me her picture,
which I readily recognized, and I have pitied you so
much, knowing you were innocent. Wilford thought you
were dead,” Katy said, flinching a little before Marian's
burning gaze, which fascinated even while it startled her.
It is not often that two women meet bearing to each
other the relations these two bore, and it is not strange
that both felt constrained and embarrassed as they stood
looking at each other. As Marian's was the stronger nature,
so she was the first to rally, and with the tears
swimming in her eyes she drew Katy closely to her, and
said,
“Now that he is gone I am glad you know it. Mine
has been a sad life, but God has helped me to bear it.
You say he believed me dead. Sometime I will tell you
how that came about; but now, his message,—he left one,
you say?”
Carefully Katy repeated every word Wilford had said,
and with a gasping cry Marian wound her arms around
her neck, exclaiming,
“And you will love me, because I have suffered so
much. You will let me call you Katy when we are alone.
It brings you nearer to me.”
Marian was now the weaker of the two, and it was
Katy's task to comfort her, as sinking back in her chair
she sobbed,
“He did love me once. He acknowledged it at the
last, before them all, his wife, his father and his sister.
Do they know?” she suddenly asked, and when assured
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that they did, she relapsed into a silent mood, while Katy
stole quietly out and left her there alone.
Half an hour later and a female form passed hurriedly
through the hall and across the threshold into the chamber
where the dead man lay. There was no one with him
now, and Marian was free to weep out the pent-up sorrow
of her life, which she did with choking sobs and passionate
words poured into the ear, deaf to every human
sound. A step upon the floor startled her, and turning
round she stood face to face with Wilford's father, who
was regarding her with a look which she mistook for one
of reproof and displeasure that she should be there.
“Forgive me,” she said; “he was my husband once, and
surely now that he is dead you will not begrudge me a
few last moments with him for the sake of the days when
he loved me.”
There were many tender chords in the heart of Father
Cameron, and offering Marian his hand, he said,
“Far be it from me to refuse you this privilege. I pity
you, Genevra; I believe he dealt unjustly by you,—but
I will not censure him now that he is gone. He was my
only boy. Oh, Wilford, Wilford! you have left me very
lonely.”
He released her hand, and Marian fled away, meeting
next with Bell, who felt that she must speak to her, but
was puzzled what to say. Bell could not define her feelings
towards Marian, or why she shrunk from approaching
her. It was not pride, but rather a feeling of prejudice,
as if Marian were in some way to blame for all the
trouble which had come to them, while her peculiar position
as the divorced wife of her brother made it the more
embarrassing. But she could not resist the mute pleading
of the eyes lifted so tearfully to her, as if asking for
a not of recognition, and stopping before her she said,
softly,
“Genevra.”
That was all, but it made Genevra's tears flow in torrents,
and she involuntarily held her hand out to Bell,
who took it, and holding it between her own, said,
“You were very kind to my brother. I thank you for
it, and will tell my mother, who will feel so grateful to
you.”
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This was a good deal for Bell to say, and after it was
said, she hastened away while Marian went on her daily
round of duties, speaking softer if possible to her patients
that day, and causing them to wonder what had come
over that sweet face to make it so white and tear-stained.
That night in Marian's room Katy sat and listened to
what she did not before know of the strange story kept
from her so long. Marian confirmed all Wilford had
told, breathing no word of blame against him now that
he was dead, only stating facts, and leaving Katy to
draw her own conclusions.
“I knew that I was handsome,” she said, “and I
liked to test my power; but for that weakness I have
been sorely punished. I had not at first any intention
of making him believe that I was dead, and when I sent
the paper containing the announcement of father's death,
I was not aware that it also contained the death of my
cousin, a beautiful girl just my age, who bore our grandmother's
name of Genevra, and about whom and a young
English lord, who had hunted one season in her father's
neighborhood, there were some scandalous reports.
Afterwards it occurred to me that Wilford would see that
notice, and naturally think it referred to me, inasmuch
as he knew nothing of my cousin Genevra.
“It was just as well, I said—I was dead to him, and I
took a strange satisfaction in wondering if he would care.
Incidentally I heard that the postmaster at Alnwick had
been written to by an American gentleman, who asked if
such a person as Genevra Lambert was buried at St.
Mary's; and then I knew he believed me dead, even
though the name appended to the letter was not Wilford
Cameron, nor was the writing his; for, as the cousin
of the dead Genevra, I asked to see the letter, and my
request was granted. It was Mrs. Cameron who wrote
it, I am sure, singing a feigned name and bidding the
postmaster answer to that address. He did so, assuring
the inquirer that Genevra Lambert was buried there,
and wondering to me if the young American who seemed
interested in her could have been a lover of the unfortunate
girl.
“I was now alone in the world, for the aunt with
whom my childhood was passed died soon after my
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father, and so I went at last to learn a trade on the Isle of
Wight, emigrating from thence to New York, with the
determination in my rebellious heart that sometime,
when it would cut the deepest, I would show myself to
the proud Camerons, whom I so cordially hated. This
was before God had found me, or rather before I had
listened to the still, small voice which took the hard,
vindictive feelings away, and made me feel kindly
towards the mother and sisters when I saw them, as I
often used to do, driving gaily by. Wilford was sometimes
with them, and the sight of him always sent the
hot blood surging through my heart. But the greatest
shock I ever had came to me when I heard from your
sister of his approaching marriage with you. Those
were terrible days that I passed at the farm-house, working
on your bridal trousseau; and sometimes I thought
it more than I could bear. Had you been other than
the little, loving, confiding, trustful girl you were, I must
have disclosed the whole, and told that you would not
be the first who had stood at the altar with Wilford.
But pity for you kept me silent, and you became
his wife.
“I loved your baby almost as much as if it had been
my own, and when it died there was nothing to bind me
to the North, and so I came here, where I hope I have
done some good; at least I was here to care for Wilford,
and that is a sufficient reward for all the toil which falls
to the lot of a hospital nurse. I shall stay until the war
is ended, and then go I know not where. It will not be
best for us to meet very often, for though we respect
each other, neither can forget the past, nor that one was
the lawful, the other the divorced wife of the same man.
I have loved you, Katy Cameron, for your uniform kindness
shown to the poor dressmaker. I shall always
love you, but our paths lie widely apart. Your future
I can predict, but mine God only knows.”
Marian had said all she meant to say, and all Katy
came to hear. The latter was to leave in the morning,
and when they would meet again neither could tell.
Few were the parting words they spoke, for the great
common sorrow welling up from their hearts; but when
at last they said good-bye, the bond of friendship
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between them was more strongly cemented than ever, and
Katy long remembered Marian's parting words.
“God bless you, Katy Cameron! You have been a
bright sun spot in my existence since I first knew you,
even though you have stirred some of the worst impulses of
my nature. I am a better woman for having known
you. God bless you, Katy Cameron!”
CHAPTER XLV. MOURNING.
THE grand funeral which Mrs. Cameron once
had planned for Katy was a reality at last, but
the breathless form lying so cold and still in
the darkened room at No. — Fifth Avenue, was
that of a soldier embalmed—an only son brought back
to his father's house amid sadness and tears. They had
taken him there rather than to his own house, because
it was the wish of his mother, who, however hard and
selfish she might be to others, had idolized her son,
and mourned for him truly, forgetting in her grief to
care how grand the funeral was, and feeling only a passing
twinge when told that Mrs. Lennox had come from
Silverton to pay the last tribute of respect to her late
son-in-law. Some little comfort it was to have her boy
lauded as a faithful soldier, and to hear the commendations
lavished upon him during the time he lay in state,
with his uniform around him; but when the whole was
over, and in the gray of the wintry afternoon her husband
returned from Greenwood, there came over her a
feeling of such desolation as she had never known—a
feeling which drove her at last to the little room upstairs,
where sat a lonely man, his head bowed upon his
hands, and his tears dropping silently upon the hearthstone
as he, too, thought of the vacant parlor below and
the new grave at Greenwood.
“Oh, husband, comfort me!” fell from her lips as she
tottered to her husband, who opened his arms to receive
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her, forgetting all the years which had made her the
cold, proud woman, who needed no sympathy, and remembering
only that bright green summer when she
was first his bride, and came to him for comfort in every
little grievance, just as now she came in this great,
crushing sorrow.
He did not tell her she was reaping what she had
sown, that but for her pride and deception concerning
Genevra, Wilford might never have gone to the war, or
they been without a son. He did not reproach her at
all, but soothed her tenderly, calling her by her maiden
name, and awkwardly smoothing her hair, silvered now
with grey, and feeling for a moment that Wilford had not
died in vain, if by his dying he gave back to his father
the wife so lost during the many years since fashion and
folly had been the idols she worshiped. But the habits
of years could not be lightly broken, and Mrs. Cameron's
mind soon became absorbed in the richness of her
mourning, and the strict etiquette of her mourning days.
To Katy she was very kind, caressing her with unwonted
affection, and scarcely suffering her to leave her sight,
much less to stay for a day at Mrs. Banker's, where Katy
secretly preferred to be. Of Genevra, too, she talked
with Katy, and at her instigation wrote a friendly letter,
thanking Mrs. Lambert for all her kindness to her
son, expressing her sorrow that she had ever been so
unjust to her, and sending her a handsome locket, containing
on one side a lock of Wilford's hair, and on the
other his picture, taken from a large sized photograph.
Mrs. Cameron felt herself a very good woman after she
had done all this, together with receiving Mrs. Lennox
at her own house, and entertaining her for one whole
day; but at heart there was no real change, and as time
passed on she gradually fell back into her old ways of
thinking, and went no more for comfort to her husband
as she had on that first night after the burial.
With Mr. Cameron the blow struck deeper, and his
Wall street friends talked together of the old man he had
grown since Wilford died, while Katy often found him
bending over his long-neglected Bible, as he sat alone in
his room at night. And when at last she ventured to
speak to him upon the all important subject, he put his
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hand in hers, and bade her teach him the narrow way
which she had found, and wherein Wilford too had
walked at the very last, they hoped.
For many weeks Katy lingered in New York, and the
June roses were blooming when she went back to Silverton,
a widow and the rightful owner of all Wilford's
ample fortune. They had found among his papers a
will, drawn up and excuted not long before his illness,
and in which Katy was made his heir, without condition
or stipulation. All was hers to do with as she pleased,
and Katy wept passionately when she heard how generous
Wilford had been. Then, as she thought of Marian
and the life of poverty before her, she crept to Father
Cameron's side, and said to him, pleadingly,
“Let Genevra share it with me. She needs it quite as
much.”
Father Cameron would not permit Katy to divide
equally with Marian. It was not just, he said; but he
did not object to a few thousands going to her, and before
Katy left New York for Silverton, she wrote a long,
kind letter to Marian, presenting her with ten thousand
dollars, which she begged her to accept, not so much as
a gift, but as her rightful due. There was a moment's
hesitancy on the part of Marian when she read the letter,
a feeling that she could not take so much from Katy;
but when she looked at the pale sufferers around her,
and remembered how many wretched hearts that money
would help to cheer, she said,
“I will keep it.”
CHAPTER XLVI. PRISONERS OF WAR.
THE heat, the smoke, the thunder of the battle
were over, and the fields of Gettysburg were
drenched with human blood and covered with
the dead and dying. The contest had been
fearful, and its results carried sorrow and anguish to
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many a heart waiting for tidings from the war, and looking
so anxiously for the names of the loved ones who, on
the anniversary of the day which saw our nation's Independence,
lay upon the hills and plains of Gettysburg,
their white faces upturned to the summer sky, and wet
with the rain drops, which, like tears for the noble dead,
the pitying clouds had shed upon them. And nowhere,
perhaps, was there a whiter face or a more anxious heart
than at the farm-house, where both Helen and her
mother-in-law were spending the hot July days. Since
the Christmas eve when Helen had watched her husband
going from her across the wintry snow, he had not been
back, though several times he had made arrangements to
do so. Something, however, had always happened to
prevent. Once it was sickness which kept him in bed
for a week or more; again his regiment was ordered to
advance, and the third time it was sent on with others to
repel the invaders from Pennsylvanian soil. Bravely
through each disappointment Helen bore herself, but her
cheek always grew paler and her eye darker in its hue
when the evening papers came, and she read what progress
our soldiery had made, feeling that a battle was inevitable,
and praying so earnestly that Mark Ray might
be spared. Then, when the battle was over and up the
northern hills came the dreadful story of thousands and
thousands slain, there was a fearful look in her eye, and
her features were rigid as marble, while the quivering
lips could scarcely pray for the great fear tugging at her
heart. Mark Ray was not with his men when they came
from that terrific onslaught. A dozen had seen him fall,
struck down by a rebel ball, and that was all she heard
for more than a week, when there came another relay of
news.
Captain Mark Ray was a prisoner of war, with several
of his own company. An inmate of Libby Prison and
a sharer from choice of the apartment where his men
were confined. As an officer he was entitled to better
quarters; but Mark Ray had a large, warm heart, and he
would not desert those who had been so faithful to him,
and so he took their fare, and by his genial humor and
unwavering cheerfulness kept many a heart from fainting,
and made the prison life more bearable than it could
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have been without him. To young Tom Tubbs, who had
enlisted six months before, he was a ministering angel,
and many times the poor homesick boy crept to the side
of his captain, and laying his burning head in his lap,
wept himself to sleep and dreamed he was at home again.
The horrors of that prison life have never been told, but
Mark bore up manfully, suffering less in mind, perhaps,
than did the friends at home, who lived, as it were, a
thousand years in that one brief summer while he remained
in Richmond.
At last, as the frosty days of October came on, they
began to hope he might be exchanged, and Helen's face
grew bright again, until one day there came a soiled,
half-worn letter, in Mark's own hand-writing. It was
the first word received from him since his capture in July,
and with a cry of joy Helen snatched it from Uncle Ephraim,
for she was still at the farm-house, and sitting down
upon the doorstep just where she had been standing,
read the words which Mark had sent to her. He was
very well, he said, and had been all the time, but he
pined for home, longing for the dear girl-wife never so
dear as now, when separated by so many miles, with
prison walls on every side, and an enemy's line between
them.
“But be of good cheer, darling,” he wrote, “I shall
come back to you some time, and life will be all the
brighter for what you suffer now. I am so glad my
darling consented to be my wife, even though I could stay
with her but a moment. The knowing you are really
mine makes me happy even here, for I think of you by
day, and in my dreams I always hold you in my arms
and press you to my heart.”
A hint he gave of being sent further south, and then
hope died out of Helen's heart.
“I shall never see him again,” she said despairingly;
and when the message came that Mark had been removed,
and that too just at the time when an exchange
was constantly expected, she gave him up as lost, feeling
almost as much windowed as Katy in her weeds.
Slowly the winter passed away, and the country was
rife with stories of our men, daily dying by hundreds,
while those who survived were reduced to maniacs or
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imbeciles. And Helen, as she listened, grew nearly
frantic with the sickening suspense. She did not know
now where her husband was. He had made several attempts
to escape, and with each failure had been removed
to safer quarters, so that his chances for being exchanged
seemed very far away. Week after week, month after
month passed on, until came the memorable battle of the
Wilderness, when Lieutenant Bob, as yet unharmed,
stood bravely in the thickest of the fight, his tall figure
towering above the rest, and his soldier's uniform buttoned
over a dark tress of hair, and a face like Bell
Cameron's. Lieutenant Bob had taken two or three furloughs;
but the one which had left the sweetest, pleasantest
memory in his heart, was that of the autumn before,
when the crimson leaves of the maple, and the
golden tints of the beech, were burning themselves out
on the hills of Silverton, where his furlough was mostly
passed, and where with Bell Cameron he scoured the
length and breadth of Uncle Ephraim's farm, now stopping
by the shore of Fairy Point, and again sitting for
hours on a ledge of rocks, far up the hill, where beneath
the softly whispering pines, nodding above their heads,
Bell gathered the light-brown cones, and said to him the
words he had so thirsted to hear.
Much of Bell's time was passed with Katy, at the farm-house,
and here Lieutenant Reynolds found her, accepting
readily of Uncle Ephraim's hearty invitation to
remain, and spending his entire vacation there with the
exception of three days, given to his family. Perfectly
charmed with quaint Aunt Betsy, he flattered and courted
her almost as much as he did Bell, but did not take
her with him in his long rambles over the hills, or sit
with her at night alone in the parlor until the clock
struck twelve—a habit which Aunt Betsy greatly disapproved,
but overlooked for this once, seeing, as she
said, that
“The young leftenant was none of her kin, and Isabel
only a little.”
Those were halcyon days which Robert passed at Silverton;
but one stood out prominently before him,
whether sitting before his camp-fire or plunging into
the battle; and that the one when, casting aside all
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pride and foolish theories, Bell Cameron freely acknowledged
her love for the man to whom she had been so long
engaged, and paid him back the kisses she had before refused
to give.
“I shall be a better soldier for this,” Robert had said, as
he guided her down the steep ledge of rocks, and with her
hand in his, walked slowly back to the farm-house, which,
on the morrow, he left to take again his place in the
army.
There were no more furloughs for him after that; and
the winter passed away, bringing the spring again, when
came that battle in the Wilderness, where, like a hero, he
fought until, becoming separated from his comrades, he
fell into the enemy's hands; and two days after, there
sped along the telegraphic wires to New York,
“Lieutenant Robert Reynolds, captured the first day
of the battle.”
Afterwards came news that Andersonville was his destination,
together with many others made prisoners that
day.
“It is better than being shot, and a great deal better
than being burned, as some of the poor wretches were,”
Juno said, trying to comfort Bell, who doubted a little
her sister's word.
True there was now the shadow of a hope that he
might return; but the probabilities were against it; and
Bell's face grew almost as white as Helen's, while her eyes
acquired that restless, watchful, anxious look which has
crept into the eyes of so many sorrowing women, looking
away to the southward, where the dear ones were dying.
CHAPTER XLVII. DOCTOR GRANT.
MORRIS had served out his time as surgeon in
the army, had added to it an extra six months;
and by his humanity, his skill, and Christian
kindness, made for himself a name which would
be long remembered by the living to whom he had
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ministered so carefully; while many a dying soldier had
blessed him for pointing out the way which leadeth to
the life everlasting; and in many a mourning family
his name was a household word, for the good he had
done to a dying son and brother. But Morris's hospital
work was over. He had gone a little too far, and incurred
too much risk, until his own strength had failed; and
now, in the month of June, when Linwood was bright
with the early summer blossoms, he was coming back
with health greatly impaired, and a dark cloud before
his vision, so that he could not see how beautiful his
home was looking, or gaze into the faces of those who
waited so anxiously to welcome their beloved physician.
Blind some said he was; but the few lines sent to
Helen, announcing the day of his arrival, contradicted
that report. His eyes were very much diseased, his
amanuensis wrote; but he trusted that the pure air of his
native hills, and the influence of old scenes and associations
would soon effect a cure. “If not too much trouble,”
he added, “please see that the house is made comfortable,
and have John meet me on Friday at the station.”
Helen was glad Morris was coming home, for he always
did her good; he could comfort her better than any
one else, unless it were Katy, whose loving, gentle words
of hope were very soothing to her.
“Poor Morris!” she sighed, as she finished his letter,
and then took it to the family, who were sitting upon the
pleasant piazza, which, at Katy's expense and her own,
had been added to the house, and overlooked Fairy Pond
and the pleasant hills beyond.
“Morris is coming home,” she said. “He will be here
on Friday, and he wishes us to see that all things are in
order at Linwood for his reception. His eyes are badly
diseased, but he hopes that coming back to us will cure
him,” she added, glancing at Katy, who sat upon a step
of the piazza, her hands folded together upon her lap, and
her blue eyes looking far off into the fading sunset.
When she heard Morris's name, she turned her head
a little, so that the ripple of her golden hair was more
distinctly visible beneath the silken net she wore; but she
made no comment nor showed by any sign that she heard
what they were saying. Katy was very lovely and
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consistent in her young widowhood, and not a whisper of
gossip had the Silvertonians coupled with her name since
she came to them, leaving her husband in Greenwood.
There had been no parading of her grief before the
public, or assumption of greater sorrow than many others
had known; but the soberness of her demeanor, and the
calm, subdued expression of her face, attested to what she
had suffered. Sixteen months had passed since Wilford
died, and she still wore her deep mourning weeds, except
the widow's cap, which, at her mother's and Aunt Betsy's
earnest solicitations, she had laid aside, substituting in
its place a simple net, which confined her waving hair
and kept it from breaking out in flowing curls, as it was
disposed to do.
Katy had never been prettier than she was now, in her
mature womanhood, and to the poor and sorrowful whose
homes she cheered so often she was an angel of goodness.
Truly she had been purified by suffering; the dross
had been burned out, and only the gold remained, shedding
its brightness on all with which it came in contact.
They would miss her at the farm-house now more than
they did when she first went away, for she made the sunshine
of their home, filling Helen's place when she was
in New York, and when she came back proving to her a
stay and comforter. Indeed, but for Katy's presence
Helen often felt that she could not endure the sickening
suspense and doubt which hung so darkly over her husband's
fate.
“He is alive; he will come back,” Katy always said,
and from her perfect faith Helen, too, caught a glimpse
of hope.
Could they have forgotten Mark they would have been
very happy at the farm-house now, for with the budding
spring and blossoming summer Katy's spirits had returned,
and her old musical laugh rang through the
house just as it used to do in the happy days of girlhood,
while the same silvery voice which led the choir
in the brick church, and sang with the little children
their Sunday hymns, often broke forth into snatches of
songs, which made even the robins listen, as they built
their nests in the trees.
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If Katy thought of Morris, she never spoke of him
when she could help it. It was a morbid fancy to which
she clung, that duty to Wilford's memory required her
to avoid the man who had so innocently come between
them; and when she heard he was coming home she felt
more pain than pleasure, though for an instant the blood
throbbed through her veins as she thought of Morris at
Linwood, just as he used to be.
The day of his return was balmy and beautiful, and at
an early hour Helen went over to Linwood to see that
everything was in order for his arrival, while Katy followed
at a later hour, wondering if Wilford would object
if he knew she was going to welcome Morris, who might
misconstrue her motives if she staid away.
There was very little for her to do, Helen and Mrs.
Hull having done all that was necessary, but she went
from room to room, lingering longest in Morris's own
apartment, where she made some alterations in the arrangement
of the furniture, putting one chair a little
more to the right, and pushing a stand or table to the
left, just as her artistic eye dictated. By some oversight
no flowers had been put in there, but Katy gathered a
bouquet and left it on the mantel, just where she remembered
to have seen flowers when Morris was at home.
“He will be tired,” she said. “He will lie down after
dinner,” and she laid a few sweet English violets upon
his pillow, thinking their perfume might be grateful to
him after the pent-up air of the hospital and cars. “He
will think Helen put them there, or Mrs. Hull,” she
thought, as she stole softly out and shut the door behind
her, glancing next at the clock, and feeling a little impatient
that a whole hour must elapse before they could expect
him.
Poor Morris! he did not dream how anxiously he was
waited for at home, nor of the crowd assembled at the
depot to welcome back the loved physician, whose name
they had so often heard coupled with praise as a true
hero, even though his post was not in the front of the
battle. Thousands had been cared for by him, their gaping
wounds dressed skillfully, their aching heads soothed
tenderly, and their last moments made happier by the
words he spoke to them of the world to which they were
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going, where there is no more war or shedding of man's
blood. In the churchyard at Silverton there were three
soldiers' graves, whose pale occupants had died with
Dr. Grant's hand held tightly in theirs, as if afraid
that he would leave them before the dark river was
crossed, while in more than one Silverton home there was
a wasted soldier, who never tired of telling Dr. Morris's
praise and dwelling on his goodness. But Dr. Morris
was not thinking of this as, faint and sick, with the
green shade before his eyes, he leaned against the pile
of shawls his companion had placed for his back, and
wondered if they were almost there.
“I smell the pond lilies; we must be near Silverton,”
he said, and a sigh escaped him as he thought of coming
home and not being able to see it or the woods and fields
around it. “Thy will be done,” he had said many times
since the fear first crept into his heart that for him the
light had faded.
But now, when home was almost reached, and he began
to breathe the air from the New England hills and
the perfume of the New England lilies, the flesh rebelled
again, and he cried out within himself, “Oh, I cannot be
blind! God will not deal thus by me!” while keen as
the cut of a sharpened knife was the pang with which he
thought of Katy, and wondered would she care if he were
blind.
Just then the long train stopped at Silverton, and, led
by his attendant, he stepped feebly into the crowd, which
sent up deafening cheers for Dr. Grant come home again.
At the sight of his helplessness, however, a feeling of awe
fell upon them, and whispering to each other, “I did not
suppose he was so bad,” they pressed around him, offering
their hands and inquiring anxiously how he was.
“I have been sick, but I shall get better now. The
very sound of your friendly voices does me good,” he
said, as he went slowly to his carriage, led by Uncle
Ephraim, who could not keep back his tears when he
saw how weak Morris was, and how he panted for breath
as he leaned back among the cushions.
It was very pleasant that afternoon, and Morris enjoyed
the drive so much, assuring Uncle Ephraim, that he
was growing better every moment. He did seem
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stronger when the carriage stopped at Linwood, and he went
up the steps where Helen Katy, and Mrs. Hull were
waiting for him. He could not by sight distinguish one
from the other, but without the aid of her voice he would
have known when Katy's hand was put in his, it was so
small, so soft, and trembled so as he held it. She forgot
Wilford in her excitement. Pity was the strongest feeling
of which she was conscious, and it manifested itself
in various ways.
Let me lead you, Cousin Morris,” she said, as she saw
him groping his way to his room, and without waiting for
his reply, she held his hand again in hers and led him
to his room, where the English violets were.
“I used to lead you,” Morris said, as he took his seat
by the window, “and I little thought then that you would
one day return the compliment. It is very hard to be
blind.”
The tone of his voice was inexpressibly sad, but his
smile was as cheerful as ever as his face turned towards
Katy, who could not answer for her tears. It seemed so
terrible to see a strong man so stricken, and that strong
man Morris—terrible to watch him in his helplessness,
trying to appear as of old, so as to cast on others no part
of the shadow resting so darkly on himself. When dinner
was over and the sun began to decline, many of his former
friends came in; but he looked so pale and weary
that they did not tarry long, and when the last one was
gone, Morris was led back to his room, which he did not
leave again until the summer was over, and the luscious
fruits of September were ripening upon the trees.
Towards the middle of July, Helen, whose health was
suffering from her anxiety concerning Mark, was taken
by Mrs. Banker to Nahant, where Mark's sister, Mrs.
Ernst, was spending the summer, and thus on Katy fell
the duty of paying to Morris those acts of sisterly attention
such as no other member of the family knew how to
pay. In the room where he lay so helpless Katy was not
afraid of him, nor did she deem herself faithless to Wilford's
memory, because each day found her at Linwood,
sometimes bathing Morris's inflamed eyes, sometimes
bringing him the cooling drink, and again reading to him
by the hour, until, soothed by the music of her voice, he
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would fall away to sleep and dream he heard the angels
sing.
“My eyes are getting better,” he said to her one day toward
the latter part of August, when she came as usual
to his room. “I knew last night that Mrs. Hull's dress
was blue, and I saw the sun shine through the shutters.
Very soon, I hope to see you, Katy, and know if you
have changed.”
She was standing close by him, and as he talked he
raised his hand to rest it on her head, but, with a sudden
movement, Katy eluded the touch, and stepped a little
further from him.
When next she went to Linwood there was in her maner
a shade of dignity, which both amused and interested
Morris. He did not know for certain that Wilford had
told Katy of the confession made that memorable night
when her recovery seemed so doubtful, but he more than
half suspected it from the shyness of her manner, and
from the various excuses she began to make for not coming
to Linwood as often as she had heretofore done.
In his great pity for Katy when she was first a widow,
Morris had scarcely remembered that she was free, or if
it did flash upon his mind, he thrust the thought aside
as injustice to the dead; but as the months and the year
went by, and he heard constantly from Helen of Katy's
increasing cheerfulness, it was not in his nature never to
think of what might be, and more than once he had
prayed, that if consistent with his Father's will, the
woman he had loved so well, should yet be his. If not,
he could go his way alone, just as he had always done,
knowing that it was right.
Such was the state of Morris's mind when he returned
from Washington, but now it was somewhat different.
The weary weeks of sickness, during which Katy had
ministered to him so kindly, had not been without their
effect, and if Morris had loved the frolicsome, child-like
Katy Lennox, he loved far more the gentle, beautiful
woman, whose character had been so wonderfully developed
by suffering, and who was more worthy of his
love than in her early girlhood.
“I cannot lose her now,” was the thought constantly in
Morris's mind, as he experienced more and more how
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desolate were the days which did not bring her to him.
“It is twenty months since Wilford died,” he said to
himself one wet October afternoon, when he sat listening
dreamily to the patter of the rain falling upon the windows,
and looking occasionally across the fields to the
farm-house, in the hope of spying in the distance the
little airy form, which, in its water-proof and cloud,
had braved worse storms than this at the time he was so
ill.
But no such figure appeared. He hardly expected it
would; but he watched the pathway just the same, and
the smoke-wreaths rising so high above the farm-house.
The deacon burned out his chimney that day, and Morris,
whose sight had greatly improved of late, knew it by the
dense, black volume of smoke, mingled with rings of fire,
which rose above the roof, remembering so well another
rainy day, twenty years ago, when the deacon's chimney
was cleaned, and a little toddling girl, in scarlet gown
and white pinafore, had amused herself with throwing
into the blazing fire upon the hearth a straw at a time,
almost upsetting herself with standing so far back, and
making such efforts to reach the flames. A great deal
had passed since then. The little girl in the pinafore had
been both wife and mother. She was a widow now, and
Morris glanced across his hearth toward the empty chair
he had never seen in imagination filled by any but herself.
“Surely, she would some day be his own,” and leaning
his head upon the cane he carried, he prayed earnestly
for the good he coveted, keeping his head down so long
that, until it had left the strip of woods and emerged into
the open fields, he did not see the figure wrapped in
water-proof and hood, with a huge umbrella over its
head and a basket upon its arm, which came picking its
way daintily toward the house, stopping occasionally,
and lifting up the little high-heeled Balmoral, which the
mud was ruining so completely. Katy was coming to
Linwood. It had been baking-day at the farm-house,
and remembering how much Morris used to love her
custards, Aunt Betsy had prepared him some, and asked
Katy to take them over, so he could have them for tea.
“The rain won't hurt you an atom,” she said as Katy
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began to demur, and glance at the lowering sky. “You
can wear your water-proof boots and my shaker, if you
like, and I do so want Morris to have them to-night.”
Thus importuned, Katy consented to go, but declined
the loan of Aunt Betsy's shaker, which being large of the
kind, and capeless, too, was not the most becoming head-gear
a woman could wear. With the basket of custards,
and cup of jelly, Katy finally started, Aunt Betsy saying
to her, as she stopped to take up her dress, “It must be
dretful lonesome for Morris to-day. S'posin' you stay to
supper with him, and when it's growin' dark I'll come
over for you. You'll find the custards fust rate.”
Katy made no reply, and walked away, while Aunt
Betsy went back to the coat she was patching for her
brother, saying to herself,
“I'm bound to fetch that round. It's a shame for two
young folks, just fitted to each other, to live apart when
they might be so happy, with Hannah, and Lucy, and me,
close by, to see to 'em, and allus make their soap, and
see to the butcherin', besides savin' peneryle and catnip
for the children, if there was any.”
Aunt Betsy had turned match-maker in her old age,
and day and night she planned how to bring about the
match between Morris and Katy. That they were made
for each other, she had no doubt. From something
which Helen inadvertently let fall, she had guessed that
Morris loved Katy prior to her marriage with Wilford.
She had suspected as much before; she was sure of it
now, and straightway put her wits to work “to make it
go,” as she expressed it. But Katy was too shy to suit
her, and since Morris's convalescence, had staid too much
from Linwood. To-day, however, Aunt Betsy “felt it in
her bones,” that if properly managed something would
happen, and the custards were but the means to the desired
end. With no suspicion whatever of the good
dame's intentions, Katy picked her way to Linwood, and
leaving her damp garments in the hall, went at once into
the library, where Morris was sitting near to a large
chair kept sacred for her, his face looking unusually cheerful,
and the room unusually pleasant, with the bright
wood fire on the hearth.
“I have been so lonely, with no company but the rain,”
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he said, pushing the chair a little towards her, and bidding
her sit near the fire, where she could dry her feet.
Katy obeyed, and sat down so near to him that had he
chosen he might have touched the golden hair, fastened
in heavy coils low on her neck, and giving to her a very
girlish appearance, as Morris thought, for he could see
her now, and while she dried her feet he looked at her
eagerly, wondering that the fierce storm she had encountered
had left so few traces upon her face. Just about
the mouth there was a deep cut line, but this was all; the
remainder of the face was fair and smooth as in her early
girlhood, and far more beautiful, just as her character
was lovelier, and more to be admired.
Morris had done well to wait if he could win her now.
Perhaps he thought so, too, and this was why his spirits
became so gay as he kept talking to her, suggesting at
last that she should stay to tea. The rain was falling in
torrents when he made the proposition. She could not
go then, even had she wished it, and though it was earlier
than his usual time, Morris at once rang for Mrs. Hull,
and ordered that tea be served as soon possible.
“I ought not to stay. It is not proper,” Katy kept
thinking, as she fidgeted in her chair, and watched the
girl setting the table for two, and occasionally deferring
some debatable point to her as if she were mistress there.
“You can go now, Reekie,” Morris said, when the
boiling water was poured into the silver kettle, and tea
was on the table. “If we need you we will ring.”
With a vague wonder as to who would toast the doctor's
bread, and butter it, Reekie departed, and the two
were left together. It was Katy who toasted the bread,
kneeling upon the hearth, burning her face and scorching
the bread in her nervousness at the novel position in
which she so unexpectedly found herself. It was Katy,
too, who prepared Morris's tea, and tried to eat, but
could not. She was not hungry, she said, and the custard
was the only thing she tasted, besides the tea, which
she sipped at frequent intervals so as to make Morris
think she was eating more than she was. But Morris
was not deceived, nor disheartened. Possibly she suspected
his intention, and if so, the sooner he reached the
point the better. So when the tea equipage was put
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away, and she began again to speak of going home, he
said,
“No, Katy, you can't go yet, till I have said what's in
my mind to say,” and laying his hand upon her shoulder
he made her sit down beside him and listen while he told
her of the love he had borne for her long before she knew
the meaning of that word as she knew it now—of the
struggle to keep that love in bounds after its indulgence
was a sin; of his temptations and victories, of his sincere
regret for Wilford, and of his deep respect for her
grief, which made her for a time as a sister to him. But
that time had passed. She was not his sister now, nor
ever could be again. She was Katy, dearer, more precious,
more desired even than before another called her
wife, and he asked her to be his, to come up there to
Linwood and live with him, making the rainy days
brighter, balmier, than the sunniest had ever been, and
helping him in his work of caring for the poor and sick
around them.
“Will Katy come? Will she be the wife of Cousin
Morris?”
There was a world of pathos and pleading in the voice
which asked this question, just as there was a world of
tenderness in the manner with which Morris caressed
and fondled the bowed head resting on the chair arm.
And Katy felt it all, understanding what it was to be
offered such a love as Morris offered, but only comprehending
in part what it would be to refuse that love.
For her blinded judgment said she must refuse it.
Had there been no sad memories springing from that
grave in Greenwood, no bitter reminiscences connected
with her married life—had Wilford never heard of Morris's
love and taunted her with it, she might perhaps
consent, for she craved the rest there would be with
Morris to lean upon. But the happiness was too great
for her to accept. It would seem too much like faithlessness
to Wilford, too much as if he had been right,
when he charged her with preferring Morris to himself.
“It cannot be;—oh, Morris, it cannot be,” she sobbed,
when he pressed her for an answer. “Don't ask me
why—don't ever mention it again, for I tell you it
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cannot be. My answer is final; it cannot be. I am sorry
for you, so sorry! I wish you had never loved me, for
it cannot be.”
She writhed herself from the arms which tried to detain
her, and rising to her feet left the room suddenly,
and throwing on her wrappings quitted the house without
another word, leaving basket and umbrella behind,
and never knowing she had left them, or how the rain
was pouring down upon her unsheltered person, until, as
she entered the narrow strip of woodland, she was met
by Aunt Betsy, who exclaimed at seeing her, and asked,
“What has become of your umberell? Your silk one
too. It's hopeful you haven't lost it. What has happened
you?” and coming closer to Katy, Aunt Betsy
looked searchingly in her face. It was not so dark that
she could not see the traces of recent tears, and instinctively
suspecting their nature she continued, “Catherine,
have you gin Morris the mitten?”
“Aunt Betsy, is it possible that you and Morris contrived
this plan?” Katy asked, half indignantly, as she
began in part to understand her aunt's great anxiety
for her to visit Linwood that afternoon.
“Morris had nothing to do with it,” Aunt Betsy replied.
“It was my doin's wholly, and this is the thanks
I git. You quarrel with him and git mad at me, who
thought only of your good. Catherine, you know you
like Morris Grant, and if he asked you to have him why
don't you?”
“I can't, Aunt Betsy. I can't, after all that has
passed. It would be unjust to Wilford.”
“Unjust to Wilford—fiddlesticks!” was Aunt Betsy's
expressive reply, as she started on toward Linwood, saying,
“she was going after the umberell before it got
lost, with nobody there to tend to things as they should
be tended to. Have you any word to send?” she asked,
hoping Katy had relented.
But Katy had not; and with a toss of her head, which
shook the rain drops from her capeless shaker, Aunt
Betsy went on her way, and was soon confronting Morris,
sitting just where Katy had left him, and looking
very pale and sad.
He was not glad to see Aunt Betsy. He would rather
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be alone until such time as he could control himself and
still his throbbing heart. But with his usual affability,
he bade Aunt Betsy sit down, shivering a little when he
saw her in the chair where Katy had sat, her thin,
angular body presenting a striking contrast to the graceful,
girlish figure which had sat there an hour since, and
the huge India rubbers she held up to the fire, as unlike
as possible to the boot of fairy dimensions he had admired
so much when it was drying on the hearth.
“I met Catherine,” Aunt Betsy began, “and mistrusted
at once that something was to pay, for a girl don't
leave her umberell in such a rain and go cryin' home
for nothin'.”
Morris colored, resenting for an instant this interference
by a third party; but Aunt Betsy was so honest
and simple-hearted, that he could not be angry long,
and he listened calmly, while she continued,
“I have not lived sixty odd years for nothing, and I
know the signs pretty well. I've been through the mill
myself.”
Here Aunt Betsy's voice grew lower in its tone, and
Morris looked up with real interest, while she went on,
“There's Joel Upham—you know Joel—keeps a tinshop
now, and seats the folks in meetin'. He asked me
once for my company, and to be smart I told him no,
when all the time I meant yes, thinkin' he would ask
agin; but he didn't, and the next I knew he was keepin'
company with Patty Adams, now his wife. I remembered
I sniveled a little at being taken at my word, but
it served me right, for saying one thing when I meant
another. However, it don't matter now. Joel is as
clever as the day is long, but he is a shiftless critter,
never splits his kindlins till jest bedtime, and Patty is
pestered to death for wood, while his snorin' nights she
says is awful, and that I never could abide; so, on the
whole, I'm better off than Patty.”
Morris laughed a loud, hearty laugh, which emboldened
his visitor to say more than she had intended saying.
“You just ask her agin. Once ain't nothing at all,
and she'll come to. She likes you; 'taint that which
made her say no. It's some foolish idea about
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faithfulness to Wilford, as if he deserved that she should be
faithful. They never orto have had one another,—never;
and now that he is well in Heaven, as I do suppose he
is, it ain't I who hanker for him to come back. Neither
does Katy, and all she needs is a little urging, to tell
you yes. So ask her again, will you?”
“I think it very doubtful. Katy knew what she
was doing, and meant what she said,” Morris replied;
and with the consoling remark that if young
folks would be fools it was none of her business to bother
with them, Aunt Betsy pinned her shawl across her
chest, and hunting up both basket and umbrella, bade
Morris good night, and went back across the fields to
the farm-house, hearing from Mrs. Lennox that Katy had
gone to bed with a racking headache.
CHAPTER XLVIII. KATY.
ARE you of the same mind still?” Helen asked,
when three weeks later she returned from New
York, and at the hour for retiring sat in her chamber
watching Katy as she brushed her hair,
occasionally curling a tress around her fingers and
letting it fall upon her snowy night-dress.
They had been talking of Morris, whom Katy had
seen but once since that rainy night, and that at church,
where he had been the previous Sunday. Katy had
written an account of the transaction to her sister, who
had chosen to reply by word of month rather than by
letter, and so the first moment they were alone she
seized the opportunity to ask if Katy was of the same
mind still as when she refused the doctor.
“Yes, why shouldn't I be?” Katy replied. “You, better
than any one else, know what passed between Wilford—”
“Do you love Morris?” Helen asked, abruptly, withnot
waiting for Katy to finish her sentence.
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For an instant the hands stopped in their work, and
Katy's eyes filled with tears, which dropped into her lap
as she replied,
“More than I wish I did, seeing I must always tell
him no. It's strange, too, how the love for him keeps
coming, in spite of all I can do. I have not been there
since, nor spoken with him until last Sunday, but I knew
the moment he entered the church, and when in the first
chant I heard his voice, my fingers trembled so that I
could hardly play, while all the time my heart goes out
after the rest I always find with him. But it cannot be.
Oh, Helen! I wish Wilford had never known that Morris
loved me.”
She was sobbing now, with her head in Helen's lap,
and Helen, smoothing her bright hair, said gently,
“You do not reason correctly. It is right for you to
answer Morris yes, and Wilford would say so, too. When
I received your letter I read it to Bell, who then told
what Wilford said before he died. You must have forgotten
it, darling. He referred to a time when you would
cease to be his widow, and he said he was willing,—said
so to her, and you. Do you remember it, Katy?”
“I do now, but I had forgotten. I was so stunned
then, so bewildered, that it made no impression. I did
not think he meant Morris, Helen; do you believe he
meant Morris?” and lifting up her face Katy looked at
her sister with a wistfulness which told how anxiously
she waited for the answer.
“I know that he meant Morris,” Helen replied. “Both
Bell and her father think so, and they bade me tell you
to marry Dr. Grant, with whom you will be so happy.”
“I cannot. It is too late. I told him no, and Helen,
I told him a falsehood, too, which I wish I might take
back,” she added. “I said I was sorry he ever loved me,
when I was not, for the knowing that he had made me
very happy. My conscience has smitten me cruelly for
that falsehood, told not intentionally, for I did not consider
what I said.”
Here was an idea at which Helen caught at once, and
the next morning she went to Linwood and brought
Morris home with her. He had been there two or three
times since his return from Washington, but not since
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Katy's refusal, and her cheeks were scarlet as she met
him in the parlor and tried to be natural. He did not
look unhappy. He was not taking his rejection very
hard, after all, she thought, and the little lady felt a very
little piqued to find him so cheerful, when she had
scarcely known a moment's quiet since the day she carried
him the custards and forgot to bring away her umbrella.
As it had rained that day, so it did now, a decided,
energetic rain, which set in after Morris came, and precluded
the possibility of his going home that night.
“He would catch his death of cold,” Aunt Betsy said,
while Helen, too, joined her entreaties, until Morris consented,
and the carriage which came round for him at
dark retnrned to Linwood with the message that the
doctor would pass the night at Deacon Barlow's.
During the evening he did not often address Katy directly,
but he knew each time she moved, and watched
every expression of her face, feeling a kind of pity for
her, when, without appearing to do so intentionally, the
family, one by one, stole from the room,—Uncle Ephraim
and Aunt Hannah without any excuse; Aunt Betsy to
mix the cakes for breakfast; Mrs. Lennox to wind the
clock, and Helen to find a book for which Morris had
asked.
Katy might not have thought strange of their departure,
were it not that neither one came back again, and
after the lapse of ten minutes or more she felt convinced
that she had purposely been left alone with Morris.
The weather and the family had conspired against her,
but after one throb of fear she resolved to brave the difficulty,
and meet whatever might happen as became a
woman of twenty-three, and a widow. She knew Morris
was regarding her intently as she fashioned into shape
the coarse wool sock, intended for some soldier, and she
could almost hear her heart beat in the silence which fell
between them ere Morris said to her, in a tone which reassured
her,
“And so you told me a falsehood the other day, and
your conscience has troubled you ever since?”
“Yes, Morris, yes; that is, I told you I was sorry
that you ever loved me, which was not exactly true, for,
after I knew you did, I was happier than before.”
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Her words implied a knowledge of his love previous to
that night at Linwood when he had himself confessed it,
and he said to her inquiringly,
“You knew it, then, before I told you?”
“From Wilford,—yes,” Katy faltered.
“I understand now why you have been so shy of me,”
Morris said; “but, Katy, must this shyness continue always?
Think, now, and say if you did not tell more
than one falsehood the other night,—as you count falsehoods?”
Katy looked wonderingly at him, and he continued,
“You said you could not be my wife. Was that true?
Can't you take it back, and give me a different answer?”
Katy's cheeks were scarlet, and her hands had ceased
to flutter about the knitting which lay upon her lap.
“I meant what I said,” she whispered; “for, knowing
how Wilford felt, it would not be right for me to be so
happy.
“Then it's nothing personal? If there were no harrowing
memories of Wilford, you could be happy with me. Is
that it, Katy?” Morris asked, coming close to her now,
and imprisoning her hands, which she did not try to take
away, but let them lie in his as he continued, “Wilford
was willing at the last. Have you forgotten that?”
“I had, until Helen reminded me,” Katy replied.
“But Morris, the talking of this thing brings Wilford's
death back so vividly, making it seem but yesterday since
I held his dying head.”
She was beginning to relent, Morris knew, and bending
nearer to her he said,
“It was not yesterday. It will be two years in February;
and this, you know, is November. I need you,
Katy. I want you so much. I have wanted you all your
life. Before it was wrong to do so, I used each day to
pray that God would give you to me, and now I feel just
as sure that he has opened the way for you to come to
me as I am sure that Wilford is in heaven. He is happy
there, and shall a morbid fancy keep you from being
happy here? Tell me, then, Katy, will you be my wife?”
He was kissing her cold hands, and as he did so he
felt her tears dropping on his hair.
“If I say yes, Morris, you will not think that I never
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loved Wilford, for I did, oh, yes! I did. Not exactly as
I might have loved you, had you asked me first, but I
loved him, and I was happy with him, for if there were
little clouds, his dying swept them all away.”
Katy was proving herself a true woman, who remembered
only the good there was in Wilford, and Morris
did not love her less for it. She was all the dearer to
him, all the more desirable, and he told her so, winding
his arms about her, and resting her head upon his shoulder,
where it lay just as it had never lain before, for with
the first kiss Morris gave her, calling her “My own little
Katy,” she felt stealing over her the same indescribable
peace she had always felt with him, intensified now, and
sweeter from the knowing that it would remain if she
should will it so. And she did will it so, kissing Morris back
when he asked her to, and thus sealing the compact of
her second betrothal. It was not exactly like the first.
There were no tumultuous emotions, or ecstatic joys, but
Katy felt in her inmost heart that she was happier now
than then; that between herself and Morris there was
more affinity than there had been between herself and
Wilford, and as she looked back over the road she had
come, and remembered all Morris had been to her, she
wondered at her blindness in not recognizing and responding
to the love in which she had now found shelter.
It was very late that night when Katy went up to bed,
and Helen, who was not asleep, knew by the face on
which the lamp-light fell that Morris had not sued in
vain. Aunt Betsy knew it, too, next morning, by the
same look on Katy's face when she came down stairs, but
this did not prevent her saying abruptly, as Katy stood
by the sink,
“Be you two engaged?”
“We are,” was Katy's frank reply, which brought back
all Aunt Betsy's visions of roasted fowls and frosted cake,
and maybe a dance in the kitchen, to say nothing of the
feather bed which she had not dared to offer Katy Cameron,
but which she thought would come in play for
“Miss Dr. Grant.”
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CHAPTER XLIX. THE PRISONERS.
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MANY of the captives were coming home, and all
along the Northern lines loving hearts were
waiting, and friendly hands outstretched to welcome
them back to “God's land,” as the poor,
suffering creatures termed the soil over which waved the
stars and stripes, for which they had fought so bravely.
Wistfully thousands of eyes ran over the long columns
of names of those returned, each eye seeking for its own,
and growing dim with tears as it failed to find it, or
lighting up with untold joy when it was found.
“Lieut. Robert Reynolds,” and “Thomas Tubbs,”
Helen read among the list of those just arrived at Annapolis,
but “Captain Mark Ray” was not there, and,
with a sickening feeling of disappointment, she passed
the paper to her mother-in-law, and hastened away, to
weep and pray that what she so greatly feared might not
come upon her.
It was after Katy's betrothal, and Helen was in New
York, hoping to hear news from Mark, and perhaps to
see him ere long, for as nearly as she could trace him
from reports of others, he was last at Andersonville.
But there was no mention made of him, no sign by which
she could tell whether he still lived, or had long since
been relieved from suffering.
Early next day she heard that Mattie Tubbs had received
a telegram from Tom, who would soon be at home,
while later in the day Bell Cameron came round to say
that Bob was living, but had lost his right arm, and was
otherwise badly crippled. It never occurred to Helen to
ask if this would make a difference. She only kissed
Bell fondly, rejoicing at her good fortune, and then sent
her back to the home where there were hot discussions
regarding the propriety of receiving into the family a
maimed and crippled member.
“It was preposterous to suppose Bob would expect it,”
Juno said, while the mother admitted that it was a most
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unfortunate affair, as indeed the whole war had proved.
For her part she sometimes wished the North had let the
South go quietly, as they wanted to, and so saved thousands
of lives, and prevented the country from being
flooded with cripples and negroes, and calls for more men
and money. On the whole, she doubted the propriety
of prolonging the war; and she certainly doubted the
propriety of giving her daughter to a cripple. There
was Arthur Grey, who had lately been so attentive; he
was a wealthier man than Lieutenant Bob, and if Bell
had any discretion she would take him in preference to a
disfigured soldier.
Such was the purport of Mrs. Cameron's remarks, to
which her husband listened, his eyes blazing with passion,
which, the moment she finished, burst forth in a
storm of oaths and invectives against what, with his pet
adjective, he called her “Copperhead principles,” denouncing
her as a traitor, reproaching her for the cruelty
which would separate her daughter from Robert Reynolds,
because he had lost an arm in the service of his
country; and them turning fiercely to Bell with the words,
“But it isn't for you to say whether he shall or shall
not have Bell. She is of age. Let her speak for herself.”
And she did speak, the noble, heroic girl, who had
listened, with bitter scorn, to what her mother and sister
said, and who now, with quivering nostrils, and voice
hoarse with emotion, answered slowly and impressively,
“I would marry Lieutenant Reynolds if he had only his
ears left to hear me tell him how much I love and honor
him! Arthur Grey! Don't talk to me of him! the
craven coward, who swore he was fifty to avoid the draft.”
After this, no more was said to Bell, who, the moment
she heard Bob was at home, went to his father's house
and asked to see him.
He was sleeping when she entered his room; and pushing
back the heavy curtain, so that the light would fall
more directly upon him, Mrs. Reynolds went out and left
her there alone.
With a beating heart she stood looking at his hollow
eyes, his sunken cheek, his short, dry hair, and thick grey
skin, but did not think of his arm, until she glanced at
the wall, where hung a large-sized photograph, taken in
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full uniform, the last time he was at home, and in which
his well-developed figure showed to good advantage.
Could it be that the wreck before her had ever been as
full of life and vigor as the picture would indicate, and
was that arm which held the sword severed from the
body, and left a token of the murderous war?
“Poor Bob! how much he must have suffered,” she
whispered, and kneeling down beside him she hid her
face in her hands, weeping bitter tears for her armless
hero.
The motion awakened Robert, who gazed for a moment
in surprise at the kneeling, sobbing maiden; then when
sure it was she, he raised himself in bed, and ere Bell
could look up, two arms, one quite as strong as the other,
were wound around her neck, and her head was pillowed
upon the breast, which heaved with strong emotions as
the soldier, said,
“My darling Bell, you don't know how much good
this meeting does me!”
He kissed her many times, and Bell did not prevent it,
but gave him kiss after kiss, then, still doubting the evidence
of her eyes, she unclasped his clinging arms, and
holding both his poor hands in hers, gave vent to a
second gush of tears as she said,
“I am so glad—oh, so glad!”
Then, as it occurred to her that he might perhaps misjudge
her, and put a wrong construction upon her joy,
she added,
“I did not care for myself, Robert. Don't think I
cared for myself, or was ever sorry a bit on my own account.”
Bob looked a little bewildered as he replied, “Never
were sorry and never cared!—I can scarcely credit that,
for surely your tears and present emotions belie your
words.”
Bell knew he had not understood her, and she said,
“Your arm, Robert, your arm. We heard that it was
cut off, and that you were otherwise mutilated.”
“Oh, that's it, then!” and something like his old mischievous
smile glimmered about Bob's mouth as he added,
“They spared my arms, but, Bell,” and he tried to look
very solemn, “suppose I tell you that they hacked off
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both my legs, and if you marry me, you must walk all
your life by the side of wooden pins and crutches!”
Bell knew by the curl of his lip that he was teasing her,
and she answered laughingly,
“Wooden pins and crutches will be all the fashion
when the war is over—badges of honor of which any woman
might be proud.”
“Well, Bell,” he replied, “I am afraid there is no such
honor in store for my wife, for if I ever get back my
strength and the flesh upon my bones, she must take me
with legs and arms included. Not even a scratch or
wound of any kind with which to awaken sympathy.”
He appeared very bright and cheerful; but when after
a moment Bell asked for Mark Ray, there came a shadow
over his face, and with quivering lips he told a tale which
blanched Bell's cheek, and made her shiver with pain and
dread as she thought of Helen—for Mark was dead—shot
down as he attempted to escape from the train which took
them from one prison to another. He was always devising
means of escape, succeeding several times, but was immediately
captured and brought back, or sent to some
closer quarter, Robert said; but his courage never deserted
him, or his spirits either. He was the life of them all,
and by his presence kept many a poor fellow from dying
of homesickness and despair. But he was dead; there
could be no mistake, for Robert saw him when he jumped,
heard the ball which went whizzing after him, saw him
as he fell on the open field, saw a man from a rude dwelling
near by go hurriedly towards him, firing his own
revolver, as if to make the death deed doubly sure. Then
as the train slacked its speed, with a view, perhaps, to
take the body on board, he heard the man who had
reached Mark, and was bending over him, call out, “Go
on, I'll tend to him, the bullet went right through here;”
and he turned the dead man's face towards the train, so
all could see the blood pouring from the temple which the
finger of the ruffian touched.
“Oh, Helen! poor Helen! how can I tell her, when
she loved him so much!” Bell sobbed.
“You will do it better than any one else,” Bob said.
“You will be very tender with her; and, Bell, tell her,
as some consolation, that he did not break with the
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treatment, as most of us wretches did; he kept up wonderfully—
said he was perfectly well—and, indeed, he looked
so. Tom Tubbs, who was his shadow, clinging to him with
wonderful fidelity, will corroborate what I have said. He
was with us; he saw him, and only animal force prevented
him from leaping from the car and going to him where
he fell. I shall never forget his shriek of agony at the
sight of that blood-stained face, turned an instant towards
us.”
“Don't, don't!” Bell cried again; “I can't endure
it!” and as Mrs. Reynolds came in she left her lover and
started for Mrs. Banker's, meeting on the steps Tom
Tubbs himself, who had come on an errand similar to her
own.
“Sit here in the hall a moment,” she said to him, as
the servant admitted them both. “I must see Mrs. Ray
first.”
Helen was reading to her mother-in-law; but she laid
down her book and came to welcome Bell, detecting at
once the agitation in her manner, and asking if she had
bad news from Robert.
“No, Robert is at home; I have just come from there,
and he told me—oh! Helen, can you bear it?—Mark is
dead—shot twice as he jumped from the train taking him
to another prison. Robert saw it and knew that he was
dead.”
Bell could get no further, for Helen, who had never
fainted in her life, did so now, lying senseless so long
that the physician began to think it would be a mercy if
she never came back to life, for her reason, he fancied,
had fled. But Helen did come back to life, with reason
unimpaired, and insisted upon hearing every detail of the
dreadful story, both from Bell and Tom. The latter confirmed
all Lieutenant Reynolds had said, besides adding
many items of his own. Mark was dead, there could be
no doubt of it; but with the tenacity of a strong, hopeful
nature, the mother clung to the illusion that possibly the
ball stunned, instead of killing—that he would yet come
back; and many a time as the days went by, that mother
started at the step upon the walk, or ring of the bell,
which she fancied might be his, hearing him sometimes
calling in the night storm for her to let him in, and
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hurrying down to the door only to be disappointed and go
back to her lonely room to weep the dark night through.
With Helen there were no such illusions. After talking
calmly and rationally with both Robert and Tom, she
knew her husband was dead, and never watched and
waited for him as his mother did. She had heard from
Mark's companions in suffering all they had to tell, of
his captivity and his love for her which manifested itself
in so many different ways. Passionately she had wept
over the tress of faded hair which Tom Tubbs brought to
her, saying, “he cut it from his head just before we left
the prison, and told me if he never got home and I did,
to give the lock to you, and say that all was well between
him and God—that your prayers had saved him. He
wanted you to know that, because, he said, it would comfort
you most of all.”
And it did comfort her when she looked up at the clear
wintry heavens and thought that her lost one was there.
It was her first real trial, and it crushed her with its magnitude,
so that she could not submit at once, and many a
cry of desolate agony broke the silence of her room,
where the whole night through she sat musing of the
past, and raining kisses upon the little lock of hair which
from the Southern prison had come to her, sole relic of
the husband so dearly loved and truly mourned. How
faded it was from the rich brown she remembered so
well, and Helen gazing at it could realize in part the suffering
and want which had worn so many precious lives
away. It was strange she never dreamed of him. She
often prayed that she might, so as to drive from her
mind, if possible, the picture of the prostrate form upon
the low, damp field, and the blood-stained face turned in
its mortal agony towards the southern sky and the pitiless
foe above it. So she always saw him, shuddering as
she wondered if the foe had buried him decently or left
his bones to bleach upon the open plain.
Poor Helen, she was widowed indeed, and it needed
not the badge of mourning to tell how terribly she was
bereaved. But the badge was there, too, for in spite of
the hope which said, “he is not dead,” Mrs. Banker
yielded to Helen's importunities, and clothed herself and
daughter-in-law in the habiliments of woe, still waiting,
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still watching, still listening for the step she should recognize
so quickly, still looking down the street; but
looking, alas! in vain. The winter passed away. Captive
after captive came home, heart after heart was
cheered by the returning loved one, but for the inmates
of No. — the heavy cloud grew blacker, for the empty
chair by the hearth remained unoccupied, and the aching
hearts uncheered. Mark Ray did not come back.
CHAPTER L. THE DAY OF THE WEDDING.
THOSE first warm days of March, 1865, when
spring and summer seemed to kiss each other
and join hands for a brief space of time, how
balmy, how still, how pleasant they were, and
how bright the farm-house looked, where preparations for
Katy's second bridal were going rapidly forward. Aunt
Betsy was in her element, for now had come the reality
of the vision she had seen so long, of house turned upside
down in one grand onslaught of suds and sand, then,
righted again by magic power, and smelling very sweet
and clean from its recent ablutions—of turkeys dying in
the barn, of chickens in the shed, of loaves of frosted
cake, with cards and cards of snowy biscuit piled upon
the pantry shelf—of jellies, tarts, and chicken salad—of
home-made wine, and home-brewed beer, with tea and
coffee portioned out and ready for the evening.
In the dining-room the table was set with the new
China ware and silver, a joint Christmas gift from Helen
and Katy to their good Aunt Hannah, as real mistress of
the house.
“Not plated ware, but the gen-oo-ine article,” Aunt
Betsy had explained at least twenty times to those who
came to see the silver, and she handled it proudly now
as she took it from the flannel bags in which Mrs. Deacon
Bannister said it must be kept, and placed it on a sidetable.
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The coffee-urn was Katy's, so was the tea-kettle and
the massive pitcher, but the rest was “ours,” Aunt Betsy
complacently reflected as she contemplated the glittering
array, and then hurried off to see what was burning on
the stove, stumbling over Morris as she went, and telling
him “he had come too soon—it was not fittin' for him to
be there under foot until he was wanted.”
Without replying directly to Aunt Betsy, Morris
knocked with a vast amount of assurance at a side-door,
which opened directly, and Katy's glowing face looked
out, and Katy's voice was heard, saying joyfully,
“Oh, Morris, it's you. I'm so glad you've come, for I
wanted”—
But what she wanted was lost to Aunt Betsy by the
closing of the door, and Morris and Katy were alone in
the little sewing room where latterly they had passed so
many quiet hours together, and where lay the bridal dress
with its chaste and simple decorations. Katy had clung
tenaciously to her mourning robe, asking if she might
wear black, as ladies sometimes did. But Morris had
promptly answered no. His bride, if she came to him
willingly, must not come clad in widow's weeds, for when
she became his wife she would cease to be a widow.
And so black was laid aside, and Katy, in soft tinted
colors, with her bright hair curling on her neck, looked
as girlish and beautiful as if in Greenwood there were no
pretentious monument, with Wilford's name upon it, nor
any little grave in Silverton where Baby Cameron slept.
She had been both wife and mother, but she was quite as
dear to Morris as if she had never borne other name than
Katy Lennox, and as he held her for a moment to his heart
he thanked God who had at last given to him the idol of his
boyhood and the love of his later years. Across their
pathway no shadow was lying, except when they remembered
Helen, on whom the mantle of widowhood had fallen
just as Katy was throwing it off.
Poor Helen! the tears always crept to Katy's eyes when
she thought of her, and now, as she saw her steal across
the road and strike into the winding path which led to the
pasture where the pines and hemlock grew, she nestled
closer to Morris, and whispered,
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“Sometimes I think it wrong to be so happy when Helen
is so sad. I pity her so much to-day.”
And Helen was to be pitied, for her heart was aching
to its very core. She had tried to keep up through the
preparations for Katy's bridal, tried to seem interested
and even cheerful, while all the time a hidden agony was
tugging at her heart, and life seemed a heavier burden
than she could bear.
All her portion of the work was finished now, and in
the balmy brightness of that warm April afternoon she
went into the fields where she could be alone beneath the
soft summer-like sky, and pour out her pent-up anguish
into the ear of Him who had so often soothed and comforted
her when other aids had failed. Last night, for
the first time since she heard the dreadful news, she had
dreamed of Mark, and when she awoke she still felt the
pressure of his lips upon her brow, the touch of his arm
upon her waist, and the thrilling clasp of his warm hand
as it pressed and held her own. But that was a dream, a
cruel delusion, and its memory made the more dark
and dreary as she went slowly up the beaten path, pausing
once beneath a chestnut tree and leaning her throbbing
head against the shaggy bark as she heard in the
distance the shrill whistle of the downward train from
Albany, and thought as she always did when she heard
that whistle, “Oh, if that heralded Mark's return, how
happy I should be.” But many sounds like that had
echoed across the Silverton hills, bringing no hope to her,
and now as it again died away in the Cedar Swamp she
pursued her way up the path till she reached a long white
ledge of rocks—“The lovers' Rock,” some called it, for
village boys and maidens knew the place, repairing to it
often, and whispering their vows beneath the overhanging
pines, which whispered back again, and told the winds the
story which though so old is always new to her who listens
and to him who tells.
Just underneath the pine there was a large flat stone,
and there Helen sat down, gazing sadly upon the valley
below, and the clear waters of Fairy Pond gleaming in the
April sunshine which lay so warmly on the grassy hills
and flashed so brightly from the cupola at Linwood, where
the national flag was flying. For a time Helen watched
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the banner as it shook its folds to the breeze, then as she
remembered with what a fearful price that flag had been
saved from dishonor, she hid her face in her hands and
sobbed bitterly.
“God help me not to think I paid too dearly for my
country's rights. Oh, Mark, my husband, I may be
wrong, but you were dearer to me than many, many
countries, and it is hard to give you up—hard to know
that the notes of peace which float up from the South
will not waken you in that grave which I can never
see. Oh, Mark, my darling, my darling, I love you so
much, I miss you so much, I want you so much. God
help me to bear. God help to say, `Thy will be done.”'
She was rocking to and fro in her grief, with her hands
pressed over her face, and for a long time she sat thus,
while the sun crept on further towards the west, and the
freshened breeze shook the tasseled pine above her head
and kissed the bands of rich brown hair, from which her
hat had fallen. She did not heed the lapse of time, nor
hear the footstep coming up the pathway to the ledge
where she was sitting, the footstep which paused at intervals,
as if the comer were weary, or in quest of some
one, but which at last came on with rapid bounds as an
opening among the trees showed where Helen sat. It
was a tall young man who came, a young man, sun-burned
and scarred, with uniform soiled and worn, but with the
fire in his brown eyes unquenched, the love in his true
heart unchanged, save as it was deeper, more intense for
the years of separation, and the long, cruel suspense,
which was all over now. The grave had given up its dead,
the captive was released, and through incredible suffering
and danger had reached his Northern home, had sought
and found his girl-wife of a few hours, for it was Mark
Ray speeding up the path, and holding back his breath as
he came close to the bowed form upon the rock, feeling a
strange throb of awe when he saw the mourning dress,
and knew it was worn for him. A moment more, and she
lay in his arms; white and insensible, for with the sudden
winding of his arms around her neck, the pressure of his
lips upon her cheek, the calling of her name, and the
knowing it was really her husband, she had uttered a
wild, impassioned cry, half of terror, half of joy, and
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[figure description] Page 402.[end figure description]
fainted entirely away, just as she did when told that he was
dead! There was no water near, but with loving words
and soft caresses Mark brought her back to life, raining
both tears and kisses upon the dear face which had
grown so white and thin since the Christmas eve when
the wintry star light had looked down upon their parting.
For several moments neither could speak for the great
choking joy which wholly precluded the utterance of a
word. Helen was the first to rally. With her head lying
in Mark's lap and pillowed on Mark's arm, she whispered,
“Let us thank God together. You, too, have learned
to pray.”
Reverently Mark bent his head to hers, and the pine
boughs overhead heard, instead of mourning notes, a
prayer of praise, as the reunited wife and husband fervently
thanked God, who had brought them together
again.
Not until nearly a half hour was gone, and Helen had
begun to realize that the arm which held her so tightly
was genuine flesh and blood, and not mere delusion, did
she look up into the face, glowing with so much of happiness
and love. Upon the forehead, and just beneath
the hair, there was a savage scar, and the flesh about it
was red and angry still, showing how sore and painful it
must have been, and making Helen shudder as she
touched it with her lips, and said,
“Poor, darling Mark! that's where the cruel ball entered;
but where is the other scar,—the one made by the
man who went to you in the fields. I have tried so hard
not to hate him for firing at a fallen foe.”
“Rather pray for him, darling. Bless him as the savior
of your husband's life, the noble fellow but for whom
I should not have been here now, for he was a Unionist,
as true to the old flag as Abraham himself,” Mark Ray
replied; and then, as Helen looked wonderingly at him,
he laid her head in an easier position upon his shoulder,
and told her a story so strange in its details, that but for
the frequent occurrence of similar incidents, it would be
pronounced wholly unreal and false.”
Of what he suffered in the Southern prisons he did
not speak, either then or ever after, but began with the
day when, with a courage born of desperation, he jumped
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from the moving train and was shot down by the guard.
Partially stunned, he still retained sense enough to know
when a tall form bent over him, and to hear the rough
but kindly voice which said,
“Play 'possum, Yank. Make b'lieve you're dead, and
throw 'em off the scent.”
This was the last he knew for many weeks, and when
again he woke to consciousness he found himself on the
upper floor of a dilapidated hut, which stood in the centre
of a little wood, his bed a pile of straw, over which
was spread a clean patch-work quilt, while seated at his
side, and watching him intently, was the same man who
had bent over him in the field, and shouted to the rebels
that he was dead.
“I shall never forget my sensations then,” Mark said,
“for with the exception of this present hour, when I
hold you in my arms, and know the danger is over, I
never experienced a moment of greater happiness and
rest than when, up in that squalid garret, I came back
to life again, the pain in my head all gone, and nothing
left save a delicious feeling of languor, which prompted
me to lie quietly for several minutes, examining my surroundings,
and speculating upon the chance which
brought me there. That I was a prisoner I did not
doubt, until the old man at my side said to me cheerily,
“Well, old chap, you've come through it like a major
though I was mighty dubus a spell about that pesky ball.
But old Aunt Bab and me fished it out, and since then
you've begun to mend.”
“ `Where am I? Who are you?' I asked, and he replied,
`Who be I? Why, I'm Jack Jennins, the rarinest,
redhotedest secesh there is in these yer parts, so the Rebs
thinks; but 'twixt you and me, boy, I'm the tallest kind of
a Union,—got a piece of the old flag sowed inside of my
boots, and every night before sleepin' I prays the Lord
to gin Abe the victory, and raise Cain generally in t'other
camp, and forgive Jack Jennins for tellin' so many lies,
and makin' b'lieve he's one thing when you know and he
knows he's tother. If I've spared one Union chap, I'll bet
I have a hundred, me and old Bab, a black woman who
lives here and tends to the cases I fotch her, till we contrive
to git 'em inter Tennessee, whar they hev to shift
for themselves.'
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“I could only press his hand in token of my gratitude
while he went on to say, `Them was beans I fired at you
that day, but they sarved every purpose, and them scalliwags
on the train s'pose you were put underground
weeks ago, if indeed you wasn't left to rot in the sun, as
heaps and heaps on 'em is. Nobody knows you are here
but Bab and me, and nobody must know if you want to
git off with a whole hide. I could git a hundred dollars
by givin' you up, but you don't s'pose Jack Jennins is a
gwine to do that ar infernal trick. No, sir,” and he
brought his brawny fist down upon his knee with a force
which made me tremble, while I tried to express my
thanks for his great kindness. He was a noble man,
Helen, while Aunt Bab, the colored woman, who nursed
me so tenderly, and whose black, bony hands I kissed at
parting, was as true a woman as any with a fairer skin
and more beautiful exterior.
“For three weeks longer I staid up in that loft, and in
that time three more escaped prisoners were brought
there, and one Union refugee from North Carolina. We
left in company one wild, rainy night, when the storm
and darkness must have been sent for our special protection,
and Jack Jennings cried like a little child when
he bade me good-bye, promising, if he survived the war,
to find his way to the North and visit me in New York.
“We found these Unionists everywhere, and especially
among the mountains of Tennessee, where, but for their
timely aid, we had surely been recaptured. With blistered
feet and bruised limbs we reached the lines at last,
when fever attacked me for the second time and brought
me near to death. Somebody wrote to you, but you
never received it, and when I grew better I would not let
them write again, as I wanted to surprise you. As soon
as I was able I started North, my thoughts full of the
joyful meeting in store—a meeting which I dreaded too,
for I knew you must think me dead, and I felt so sorry
for you, my darling, knowing, as I did, you would
mourn for your soldier husband. That my darling has
mourned is written on her face, and needs no words to
tell it; but that is over now,” Mark said, folding his wife
closer to him, and kissing the pale lips, while he told her
how, arrived at Albany, he had telegraphed to his mother,
asking where Helen was.
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[figure description] Page 405.[end figure description]
“In Silverton,” was the reply, and so he came on in
the morning train, meeting his mother in Springfield as
he had half expected to do, knowing that she could leave
New York in time to join him there.
“No words of mine,” he said, “are adequate to describe
the thrill of joy with which I looked again upon
the hills and rocks so identified with you that I loved
them for your sake, hailing them as old, familiar friends,
and actually growing sick and faint with excitement when
through the leafless woods I caught the gleam of Fairy
Pond, where I gathered the lilies for you. There is a
wedding in progress at the farm-house, I learned from
mother, and it seems very meet that I should come at
this time, making, in reality, a double wedding, when I
can truly claim my bride,” and Mark kissed Helen passionately,
laughing to see how the blushes broke over her
white face, and burned upon her neck.
Those were happy moments which they passed together
upon that ledge of rocks, happy enough to atone
for all the dreadful past, and when at last they rose and
slowly retraced their steps to the farm-house, it seemed
to Mark that Helen's cheeks were rounder than when he
found her, while Helen knew that the arm on which she
leaned was stronger than when it first encircled her an
hour or two before.
CHAPTER LI. THE WEDDING.
ON the same train with Mrs. Banker and Mark,
Bell Cameron came with Bob, but father Cameron
was not able to come; he would gladly have done
so if he could, and he sent his blessing to Katy
with the wish that she might be very happy in her second
married life. This message Bell gave to Katy, and then
tried to form some reasonable excuse for her mother's
and Juno's absence, for she could not tell how haughtily
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both had declined the invitation, Juno finding fault because
Katy had not waited longer than two years, and
Mrs. Cameron blaming her for being so very vulgar as to
be married at home, instead of in church. On this point
Katy herself had been a little disquieted, feeling how
much more appropriate it was that she be married in the
church, but shrinking from standing again a bride at the
same altar where she had once before been made a wife.
She could not do it, she finally decided; there would be
too many harrowing memories crowding upon her mind,
and as Morris did not particularly care where the ceremony
was performed, it was settled that it should be at
the house, even though Mrs. Deacon Bannister did say
that “she had supposed Dr. Grant too High Church to do
anything so Presbyterianny as that.”
Bell's arrival at the farm-house was timely; for the unexpected
appearance in their midst of one whom they
looked upon as surely dead had stunned and bewildered
the family to such an extent that it needed the presence
of just such a matter-of-fact, self-possessed woman as
Bell, to bring things back to their original shape. It
was wonderful how the city girl fitted into the vacant
niches, seeing to everything which needed seeing to, and
still finding time to steal away alone with Lieutenant
Bob, who kept her in a painful state of blushing, by constantly
wishing it was his bridal night as well as Dr.
Grant's, and by inveighing against the weeks which must
intervene, ere the day appointed for the grand ceremony,
to take place in Grace Church, and which was to make
Bell his wife.
“Come in here, Helen, I have something to show
you,” Mrs. Banker said, after she had again embraced
and wept over her long lost son, whose return was not
quite real yet; and leading her daughter-in-law to her
bed-room, she showed her the elegant, white silk which
had been made for her just after her marriage, two years
before, and which, with careful forethought, she had
brought with her, as more suitable now for the wedding,
than Helen's mourning weeds.
“I made the most of my time last night, after receiving
Mark's telegram, and had it modernized somewhat,”
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[figure description] Page 407.[end figure description]
she said. “And I brought your pearls, for you will be
most as much a bride as Katy, and I have a pride in
seeing my son's wife appropriately dressed.”
Far different were Helen's feelings now, as she donned
the elegant dress, from what they had been the first
and only time she wore it. Then the bridegroom was
where danger and death lay thickly around his pathway;
but now he was at her side, kissing her cheek,
where the roses were burning so brightly, and calling
still deeper blushes to her face, by his teasing observations
and humorous ridicule of his own personal appearance.
Would she not feel ashamed of him in his soiled
uniform? And would she not cast longing glaces at her
handsome brother-in-law and the stylish Lieutenant
Bob? But Helen was proud of her husband's uniform,
as a badge of what he had suffered; and when the folds
of her rich dress swept against it, she did not draw them
away, but nestled closer to him, leaning upon his shoulder;
and when no one was near, winding her soft arm
about his neck once, whispering, “My darling Mark, I
cannot make it real yet.”
Softly the night shadows fell around the farm-house,
and in the rooms below a rather mixed group was assembled—
all the élite of the town, with many of Aunt Betsy's
neighbors, and the doctor's patients, who had come to
see their physician married, rejoicing in his happiness,
and glad that the mistress of Linwood was not to be a
stranger, but the young girl who had grown up in their
midst, and who, by suffering and sorrow, had been
moulded into a noble woman, worthy of Dr. Grant.
She was ready now for her second bridal, in her dress of
white, with no vestige of color in her face, and her great
blue eyes shining with a brilliancy which made them almost
black. Occasionally, as her thoughts leaped backward
over a period of almost six years, a tear trembled
on her long eyelashes, but Morris kissed it away, asking
if she were sorry.
“Oh, no, not sorry that I am to be your wife,” she answered;
“but it is not possible that I should forget entirely
the roughness of the road which has led me to you.”
“They are waiting for you,” was said several times,
and down the stairs passed Mark Ray and Helen, Lieut.
-- 408 --
[figure description] Page 408.[end figure description]
Bob and Bell, with Dr. Grant and Katy, whose face, as she
stood again before the clergyman and spoke her marriage
vows, shone with a strange, peaceful light, which made
it seem to those who gazed upon her like the face of some
pure angel.
There was no thought then of that deathbed in Georgetown—
no thought of Greenwood or the little grave in
Silverton, where the crocuses and hyacinths were blossoming—
no thought of anything save the man at her
side, whose voice was so full and earnest as it made the
responses, and who gently pressed the little hand as he
fitted the wedding-ring. It was over at last, and Katy
was Morris's wife, blushing now as they called her Mrs.
Grant, and putting up her rosebud lips to be kissed by
all who claimed that privilege. Helen, too, came in for
her share of attention, and the opinion of the guests as to
the beauty of the respective brides, as they were termed,
was pretty equally divided.
In heavy rustling silk, which actually trailed an inch,
and cap of real lace, Aunt Betsy moved among the
crowd, her face glowing with the satisfaction she felt at
seeing her nieces so much admired, and her heart so full
of good will and toleration that after the supper was
over, and she fancied a few of the younger ones were beginning
to feel tired, she suggested to Bell that she
might start a dance if she had a mind to, either in the
kitchen or the parlor, it did not matter where, and
“Ephraim would not care an atom,” a remark which
brought from Mrs. Deacon Bannister a most withering
look of reproach, and slightly endangered Aunt Betsy's
standing in the church. Perhaps Bell Cameron suspected
as much, for she replied that they were having a
splendid time as it was, and as Dr. Grant did not dance,
they might as well dispense with it altogether. And so
it happened that there was no dancing at Katy's wedding,
and Uncle Ephraim escaped the reproof which his brother
deacon would have felt called upon to give him had
he permitted so grievous a sin, while Mrs. Deacon Bannister,
who, at the first trip of the toe would have departed
lest her eyes should look upon the evil thing, was
permitted to remain until “it was out,” and the guests
retired en masse to their respective homes.
-- 409 --
[figure description] Page 409.[end figure description]
The carriage from Linwood stood at the farm-house
door, and Katy, wrapped in shawls and hood, was ready
to go with her husband. There were no tears shed at this
parting, for their darling was not going far away; her
new home was just across the fields, and through the soft
moonlight they could see its chimney tops, and trace for
some little distance the road over which the carriage went
bearing her swiftly on; her hands fast locked in Morris's,
her head upon his arm, and the hearts of both too full of
bliss for either to speak a word until Linwood was reached,
when, folding Katy to his bosom in a passionate embrace,
Morris said to her,
“We are home at last—your home and mine, my precious,
precious wife.”
The village clock was striking one, and the sound
echoed across the waters of Fairy Pond, awakening, in
his marshy bed, a sleeping frog, who sent forth upon the
warm, still air a musical, plaintive note as Morris bore
his bride over the threshold and into the library, where a
cheerful fire was blazing. He had ordered it kindled
there, for he had a fancy ere he slept to see fulfilled a dream
he had dreamed so often, of Katy sitting as his wife in
the chair across the hearth, where he placed her now,
himself removing her shawl and hood; then kneeling
down before her, with his arm around her waist and his
head upon her shoulder, he prayed aloud to the God who
had brought her there, asking His blessing upon their future
life, and dedicating himself and all he had to his
Master's service. It is such prayer which God delights
to answer, and a peace, deeper than they had yet known,
fell upon that newly-married pair at Linwood.
-- 410 -- p591-415
CHAPTER LII. CONCLUSION.
[figure description] Page 410.[end figure description]
THE scene shifts now to New York, where, one
week after that wedding in Silverton, Mark and
Helen went, together with Morris and Katy.
But not to Madison Square. That house had
been sold, and Katy saw it but once, her tears falling fast
as, driving slowly by with Morris, she gazed at the closed
doors and windows of what was once her home, and
around which lingered no pleasant memories save that it
was the birthplace of baby Cameron. Lieutenant Reynolds
had thought to buy it, but Bell said, “No, it would
not be pleasant for Katy to visit me there, and I mean
to have her with me as much as possible.” So the house
went to strangers, and a less pretentious but quite as
comfortable one was bought for Bell, so far up town that
Juno wondered how her sister would manage to exist so
far from everything, intimating that her visits would be
far between, a threat which Lieutenant Bob took quite
heroically; indeed, it rather enhanced the value of his
pleasant home than otherwise, for Juno was not a favorite,
and his equanimity was not likely to be disturbed if
she never crossed his threshold. She was throwing bait
to Arthur Grey, the man who swore he was fifty to escape
the draft, and who, now that the danger was over, would
gladly take back his oath and be forty, as he really was.
With the most freezing kiss imaginable Juno greeted
Katy, calling her “Mrs. Grant,” and treating Morris as
if he were an entire stranger, instead of the man whom
to get she would once have moved both earth and heaven.
Mrs. Cameron, too, though glad that Katy was married,
and fully approving her choice, threw into her manner
so much reserve that Katy's intercourse with her was
anything but agreeable, and she turned with alacrity to
father Cameron, who received her with open arms, calling
her his daughter, and welcoming Morris as his son,
taken in Wilford's stead. “My boy,” he frequently called
-- 411 --
[figure description] Page 411.[end figure description]
him, showing how willingly he accepted him as the husband
of one whom he loved as his child. Greatly he
wished that they should stay with him while they remained
in New York, but Katy preferred going to Mrs.
Banker's, where she would be more quiet, and avoid the
bustle and confusion attending the preparations for Bell's
wedding. It was to be a grand church affair, and to
take place during Easter week, after which the bridal
pair were going on to Washington, and if possible to
Richmond, where Bob had been a prisoner. Everything
seemed conspiring to make the occasion a joyful one, for
all through the North, from Maine to California, the air
was rife with the songs of victory and the notes of approaching
peace. But alas! He who holds our country's
destiny in his hand changed that song of gladness into a
wail of woe, which, echoing through the land, rose up to
heaven in one mighty sob of anguish, as the whole nation
bemoaned its loss. Our President was dead, and
New York was in mourning, so black, so profound, that
with a shudder Bell Cameron tossed aside the orange
wreath and said to her lover, “We will be married at
home. I cannot now go to the church, when everything
seems like one great funeral.”
And so in Mrs. Cameron's drawing-room there was a
quiet wedding, one pleasant April morning, and Bell's
plain traveling dress was far more in keeping with the
gloom which hung over the great city than her gala robes
would have been, with a long array of carriages and
merry wedding chimes. Westward they went instead of
South, and when our late lamented President was borne
back to the prairies of Illinois, they were there to greet
the noble dead, and mingle their tears with those who
knew and loved him long before the world appreciated
his worth.
Softly the May rain falls on Linwood, where the fresh
green grass is springing and the early spring flowers
blooming, and where Katy stands for a moment in the
bay window of the library, listening to the patter on the
tin roof overhead, and gazing wistfully down the road,
as if watching for some one; then turning, she enters the
dining-room and inspects the supper table, for her
-- 412 --
[figure description] Page 412.[end figure description]
mother, Aunt Hannah, and Aunt Betsy are visiting her this
rainy afternoon, while Morris, on his return from North
Silverton, is to call for Uncle Ephraim and bring him
home to tea.
Linwood is a nice place to visit, and the old ladies
enjoy it vastly, especially Aunt Betsy, who never tires of
telling what they have “over to Katy's,” and whose capeless
shaker hangs often on the hall stand, just as it hangs
now, while she, good soul, sits in the pleasant parlor, and
darns the socks for Morris, taking as much pains as if it
were a network of fine lace she was weaving, instead of
a shocking rent in some luckless heel or toe. Up stairs
there is a pleasant room which Katy calls Aunt Betsy's,
and in it is the feather bed,” which never found its way
to Madison Square. Morris himself did not think much
of feathers, but he made no objections when Aunt Betsy
insisted upon Katy's having the bed kept for so many
years, and only smiled a droll kind of smile when he one
morning met it coming up the walk in the wheelbarrow
which Uncle Ephraim trundled.
Morris and his young wife are very happy together
and Katy finds the hours of his absence very long,
especially when left alone. Even to-day the time drags
heavily, and she looks more than once from the bay window,
until at last Brownie's head is seen over the hill,
and a few moments after Morris's arm is round her
shoulders, and her lips are upturned for the kiss he gives
as he leads her into the house, chiding her for exposing
herself to the rain, and placing in her hand three letters,
which she does not open until the cozy tea is over and
her family friends have gone. Then, while her husband,
looks over his evening paper, she breaks the seals one by
one, reading first the letter from “Mrs. Bob Reynolds,”
who has returned from the West, and who is in the full
glory of her bridal calls.
“I was never so happy in my life as I am now,” she
wrote. “Instead, I did not know that a married woman
could be so happy; but then every woman has not a Bob
for her husband, which makes a vast difference. You
ought to see Juno. I know she envies me, though she
affects the utmost contempt for matrimony, and reminds
me forcibly of the fox and the grapes. You see, Arthur
-- 413 --
[figure description] Page 413.[end figure description]
Grey is a failure, so far as Juno is concerned, he having
withdrawn from the field and laid himself at the feet of
Sybil Grandon, who will be Mrs. Grey, and a bride at
Saratoga the coming summer. Juno intends going too,
as the bridesmaid of the party; but every year her chances
lessen, and I have very little hope that father will
ever call other than Bob his son, always excepting Morris,
of course, whom he has adopted in place of Wilford.
You don't know, Katy, how much father thinks of you,
blessing the day which brought you to us, and saying
that if he is ever saved, he shall in a great measure owe
it to your influence and consistent life after the great
trouble came upon you,”
There were tears in Katy's eyes as she read this letter
from Bell, and with a mental prayer of thanksgiving that
she had been of any use in guiding even one to the Shepherd's
Fold, she took next the letter whose superscription
brought back so vividly to her mind the daisy-covered
grave in Alnwick. Marian, who was now at Annapolis,
caring for the returned prisoners, did not write often,
and her letters were prized the more by Katy, who read
with a beating heart the kind congratulations upon her
recent marriage, sent by Marian Hazelton.
“I knew how it would end, when you were in Georgetown,” she
wrote, “and I am glad that it is so, praying daily that you may be
happy with Dr. Grant and remember the sad past only as some dream
from which you have awakened. I thank you for your invitation
to visit Linwood, and when my work is over I may come for a few
weeks and rest in your bird's nest of a home. Thank God the war
is ended; but my boys need me yet, and until the last crutch has left
the hospital, I shall stay where duty lies. What my life will henceforth
be I do not know; but I have sometimes thought that with the
funds you so generously bestowed upon me, I shall open a school for
orphan children, taking charge myself, and so doing some good.
Will you be the Lady Patroness, and occasionally enliven us with the
light of your countenance? I have left the hospital but once since
you were here, and then I went to Wilford's grave. I prayed for you
while there, remembering only that you had been his wife. In a little
box where no eyes but mine ever look, there is a bunch of flowers
plucked from Wilford's grave. They are faded and withered, but something
of their sweet perfume lingers still; and I prize them as my
greatest treasure; for, except the lock of hair severed from his head,
they are all that is remaining to me of the past, which now seems so
far away. It is time to make my nightly round of visits, so I must
bid you good-bye. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance
upon you, and be with you forever.
Marian Hazelton.”
-- 414 --
[figure description] Page 414.[end figure description]
For a long time Katy held this letter in her hand, wondering
if the sorrowful woman whose life was once so
strangely blended with that of Marian Hazelton, could be
the Katy Grant who sat by the evening fire at Linwood,
with the sunshine of perfect happiness resting on her
heart. “Truly He doeth all things well to those who wait
upon Him,” she thought, as she laid down Marian's letter
and took up the third and last, Helen's letter, dated at
Fortress Monroe, whither, with Mark Ray, she had gone
just after Bell Cameron's bridal.
“You cannot imagine,” Helen wrote, “the feelings of
awe and even terror which steal over me the nearer I get to
the seat of war, and the more I realize the bloody strife
we have been engaged in, and which, thank God, has now
nearly ceased. You have heard of John Jennings, the noble
man who saved my dear husband's life, and of Aunt
Bab, who helped in the good work? Both are here, and
I never saw Mark more pleased than when seized around
the neck by two long brawny arms, while a cheery voice
called out: `Hallow, old chap, has you done forgot John
Jennins?' I verily believe Mark cried, and I know I
did, especially when old Bab came up and shook `young
misses' hand.' I kissed her, Katy—all black, and rough,
and uncouth as she was. I wish you could see how grateful
the old creature is for every act of kindness. When we
come home again, both John and Bab will come with us,
though what we shall do with John, is more than I can
tell. Mark says he shall employ him about the office, and
this I know will delight Tom Tubbs, who has again made
friends with Chitty, and who will almost worship John
as having saved Mark's life. Aunt Bab shall have an
honored seat by the kitchen fire, and a pleasant room all
to herself, working only when she likes, and doing as she
pleases.
“Did I tell you that Mattie Tubbs was to be my seamstress?
I am getting together a curious household, you
will say; but I like to have those about me to whom I
can do the greatest amount of good, and as I happen to
know how much Mattie admires `the Lennox girls,' I did
not hesitate to take her.
“We stopped at Annapolis on our way here, and I shall
never forget the pale, worn faces, nor the great sunken
-- 415 --
[figure description] Page 415.[end figure description]
eyes which looked at me so wistfully as I went from cot
to cot, speaking words of cheer to the sufferers, some of
whom were Mark's companions in prison, and whose eyes
lighted up with joy as they recognized him and heard of
his escape. There are several nurses here, but no words
of mine can tell what one of them is to the poor fellows,
or how eagerly they watch for her coming, following her
with greedy glances as she moves about the room, and
holding her hand with a firm clasp, as if they would keep
her with them always. Indeed, more than one heart, as
I am told, has confessed its allegiance to her; but she
answers all the same, `I have no love to give. It died
out long ago, and cannot be recalled.' You can guess
who she is, Katy. The soldiers call her an angel, but
we know her as Marian.”
There were great tear blots upon that letter as Katy
put it aside, and nestling close to Morris, laid her head
upon his knee, where his hand could smooth her golden
curls, while she pondered Helen's closing words, thinking
how much they expressed, and how just a tribute
they were to the noble woman whose life had been one
constant sacrifice of self for another's good—“The soldiers
call her an angel, but we know her as Marian.”
THE END.
-- --
[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]
Back matter
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