A Changed Heart Part 53

Her foot was on the carpeted stair as she said this, and she ran up without giving her housekeeper time to reply. Catty Clowrie, industriously sewing away, listened, and compressed her thin lips.

"Miss Rose coming to see her, and admitted to a private interview, when every one else is excluded! Um--m--m! That is rather odd; and Miss Rose is a stranger to her--or is supposed to be! I wonder why she fainted at sight of Miss Rose, on the wharf, yesterday, and why Miss Rose's face turned to pale amazement at sight of her. She did not ask any questions, I noticed; but Miss Rose was always discreet; and no one observed her but myself, in the hubbub. There is something odd about all this!"

She threaded her needle afresh, and went on with her sewing, with the patient perseverance of all such phlegmatic mortals. Mrs. Hill came in, wondering what Miss Henderson could possibly want of Miss Rose, but her niece could throw no light on the subject.

"Perhaps she wants a companion," Miss Clowrie remarked; "fine ladies like Miss Henderson are full of freaks, and perhaps she wants some one to play and sing and read to her, when she feels too lazy to do it herself."

Catty Clowrie had read a good many novels in her life, full of all sorts of mysteries, and secret crimes, and wicked concealments, and conspiracies--very romantic and unlike every-day life--but still liable to happen. She had never had the faintest shadow of romance, to cover rosily her own drab-hued life--no secret or mystery of any sort to happen to herself, or any of the people among whom she mingled. The most romantic thing that had ever occurred within her personal knowledge was the fact of this new heiress, this Olive Henderson, rising from the offal of New York, from the most abject poverty, to sudden and great wealth.

Miss Clowrie sat until three o'clock, sewing at the dining-room window.

Luncheon-hour was two, but Miss Henderson would not descend, and asked to have a cup of strong tea sent up, so Mrs. Hill and her niece partook of that repast alone. As the clock was striking three, a young lady, dressed in half-mourning, came down the street and rang the door-bell; and Catty, dropping her work, ran to open it, and embrace with effusion the visitor. She had not spoken to Miss Rose before since her return, and kissed her now, as though she were really glad to see her.

"I am so glad you are back again, dear Miss Rose!" the young lady cried, holding both Miss Rose's hands in hers; "you cannot think how much we have all missed you since you went away!"

Now, it was rather unfortunate for Miss Clowrie, but nature, who will always persist in being absurdly true to herself, had given an insincere look to the thin, wide mouth, and a false glimmer to the greenish-gray eyes, and a clammy, limp moistness to the cold hand, that made you feel as if you had got hold of a dead fish, and wished to drop it again as soon as possible. Miss Rose had taken an instinctive aversion to Miss Clowrie the first time she had seen her, and had never been quite able to get over it since, though she had conscientiously tried; but she never betrayed it, and smiled now in her own gentle smile, and thanked Miss Clowrie in her own sweet voice. She turned to Mrs. Hill, though, when that lady appeared, with a far different feeling, and returned the kiss that motherly old creature bestowed upon her.

"It does my heart good to see you again, Miss Rose," the housekeeper said. "I haven't forgotten all you did for me last year when poor, dear Hill was lost, going after that horrid ship. You can't think how glad I was when I heard you were come back."

"Thank you, Mrs. Hill," the governess said. "It is worth while going away for the sake of such a welcome back. Is Miss--" she hesitated a moment, and then went on, with a sudden flush lighting her face; "is Miss Henderson in?"

"Yes, my dear; I will go and tell her you are here."

The housekeeper went up-stairs, but reappeared almost immediately.

"You are to go up-stairs, my dear," she said; "Miss Henderson is not very well, and will see you in her own room."

Miss Rose ascended the stairs, entered the chamber of the heiress, and Catty heard the door closed and locked after her. As Mrs. Hill re-entered the dining-room, she found her gathering up her work.

"I left the yokes and wristbands in your room, aunt," she explained. "I must go after them, and I'll just go up and finish this nightgown there."

There were four rooms up-stairs, with a hall running between each two.

The two on the left were occupied by Miss Henderson, one being her bedroom, the other a bath-room. Mrs. Hill had the room opposite the heiress, the other being used by Rosie, the chambermaid.

Miss Clowrie (one hates to tell it, but what is to be done?) went deliberately to Miss Henderson's door, and applied first her eye, then her ear, to the key-hole. Applying her eye, she distinctly beheld Miss Olive Henderson, the heiress of Redmon, the proudest woman she had ever known, down upon her knees, before Miss Rose, the governess--the ex-school-mistress; holding up her closed hands, in wild supplication, her face like the face of a corpse, and all her black hair tumbled and falling about her.

To say that Miss Catty Clowrie was satisfied by this sight, would be doing no sort of justice to the subject. The first words she caught were not likely to lessen her astonishment--wild, strange words.

"I thought you were dead! I thought you were dead!" in a pa.s.sion of consternation, that seemed to blot out every thought of prudence. "I thought you were dead! As Heaven hears me, I thought you were dead, or I never would have done it."

Miss Rose was standing with her back to the door, and the eavesdropper saw her trying to raise the heiress up.

"Get up, Harriet," she distinctly heard her say, though she spoke in a low voice; "I cannot bear to see you like this; and do not speak so loud--some one may hear you."

If they had only known of the pale listener at the door, hushing her very heart-beating to hear the better. But Miss Henderson would not rise; she only knelt there, white and wild, and holding up her clasped hands.

"I will never get up," she pa.s.sionately cried. "I will never rise out of this until you promise to keep my secret. It is not as a favor, it is as a right I demand it! Your father robbed my mother and me. But for him I would have never known poverty and misery--and G.o.d only knows the misery that has been mine. But for him, I should never have known what it is to suffer from cold and hunger, and misery and insult; but for him I would have been rich to-day; but for him my mother might still be alive and happy. He ruined us, and broke her heart, and I tell you it is only justice I ask! I should never have come here had I not thought you dead; but now that I have come, that wealth and comfort have been mine once more, I will not go. I will not, I tell you! I will die before I yield, and go back to that horrible life, and may my death rest forever on your soul!"

Catty Clowrie, crouching at the door, turned as cold as death, listening to these dreadful words. Was she awake--was she dreaming? Was this Olive Henderson--the proud, the beautiful, the queenly heiress--this mad creature, uttering those pa.s.sionate, despairing words. She could not see into the room, her ear was at the keyhole--strained to a tension that was painful, so absorbed was she in listening. But at this very instant her strained hearing caught another sound--Rosie, the chambermaid, coming along the lower hall, and up-stairs. Swift as a flash, Catty Clowrie sprang up, and darted into her aunt's room. She did not dare to close the door, lest the girl should hear her, and she set her teeth with anger and suppressed fury at the disappointment.

Rosie had come up to make her bed, and set her room to rights, and was in no wise disposed to hurry over it. She sang at her work; but the pale-faced attorney's daughter in the next room, furious with disappointment, could have seen her choked at the moment with the greatest pleasure. Half an hour pa.s.sed--would the girl never go?

Yes--yes, there was Mrs. Hill, at the foot of the stairs, calling her, and Rosie ran down. Quick as she had left it, Catty was back at her post, airing her eye at the keyhole once more.

The scene she beheld was not quite so tragic this time. The heiress and the governess were seated opposite one another, an inlaid table between them. There was paper and ink on the table; Miss Henderson held a pen in her hand, as if about to write, and Miss Rose was speaking. Her voice was sweet and low, as usual; but it had a firm cadence, that showed she was gravely in earnest now.

"You must write down these conditions, Harriet," she was saying, "to make matters sure; but no one shall ever see the papers, and I pledge you my solemn word, your secret shall be kept inviolable. Heaven knows I have done all I could to atone for my dead father's acts, and I will continue to do it to the end. He wronged your mother and you, I know, and I am thankful it is in my power to do reparation. I ask nothing for myself--but others have rights as well as you, Harriet, and as sacred.

Two hundred pounds will pay all the remaining debts of my father now.

You must give me that. And you must write down there a promise to pay Mrs. Marsh one hundred pounds a year annuity, as long as she lives. Her daughter should have had it all, Harriet, and neither you nor I; and the least you can do, in justice, is to provide for her. You will do this?"

"Yes--yes," Miss Henderson cried; "that is not much to do! I want to do more. I want you to share with me, Olly."

"No," said Miss Rose, "you may keep it all. I have as much as I want, and I am very well contented. I have no desire for wealth. I should hardly know what to do with it if I had possessed it."

"But you will come and live with me," Miss Henderson said, in a voice strangely subdued; "come and live with me, and let us share it together, as sisters should."

That detestable housemaid again! If Catty Clowrie had been a man, she might have indulged in the manly relief of swearing, as she sprang up a second time, and fled into Mrs. Hill's room. This time, Rosie was not called away, and she sat for nearly an hour, singing, at her chamber window, and mending her stockings. Catty Clowrie, on fire with impotent fury, had to stay where she was.

Staying there, she saw Miss Henderson's door opened at last; and, peeping cautiously out, saw the two go down-stairs together. Miss Rose looked as if she had been crying, and her face was very pale, but the fierce crimson of excitement burned on the dark cheeks and flamed in the black eyes of Miss Henderson. It was the heiress who let Miss Rose out, and then she came back to her room, and resumed the old trick of walking up and down, up and down, as on the preceding night.

Catty wondered if she would never be tired. It was all true, then; and there was a dark secret and mystery in Olive Henderson's life. "Olive!"

Was that her name, and if so, why had Miss Rose called her "Harriet."

And if the governess's name was Winnie, why did the heiress call her "Olly?"

Catty Clowrie sat thinking while the April day faded into misty twilight, and the cold evening star glimmered down on the sea. She sat there thinking while the sun went low, and dipped into the bay, and out of sight. She sat thinking while the last little pink cloud of the sunset paled to dull gray, and the round white moon came up, like a shining shield. She sat there thinking till the dinner-bell rang, and she remembered she was cold and hungry, and went slowly down-stairs--still thinking.

To her surprise, for she had been too absorbed to hear her come out of her room, Miss Henderson was there, beautifully dressed, and in high spirits. She had such a pa.s.sion for luxury and costly dress, this young lady, that she would array herself in velvets and brocades, even though there were none to admire her but her own servants.

On this evening, she had dressed herself in white, with ornaments of gold and coral in her black braids, broad gold bracelets on her superb arms, and a cl.u.s.ter of scarlet flowers on her breast. She looked so beautiful with that fire in her eyes, that flush on her cheek, that brilliant smile lighting up her gypsy face, that Mrs. Hill and Catty were absolutely dazzled. She laughed--a clear, ringing laugh--at Mrs.

Hill's profuse congratulations on her magical recovery.

"You dear old Mrs. Hill!" she said, "when you are better used to mo, you will cease to wonder at my eccentricities! It is a woman's privilege to change her mind sixty times an hour, if she chooses--and I choose to a.s.sert all the privileges of my s.e.x!"

She rose from the table as she spoke, still laughing, and went into the drawing-room. The gas burned low, but she turned it up to its full flare, and, opening the piano, rattled off a stormy polka. She twirled round presently, and called out:

"Mrs. Hill!"

Mrs. Hill came in.

"Tell Sam to go up to Miss Blair's, and fetch her here. Let him tell her I feel quite well again, and want her to spend the evening, if she is not engaged. He can take the gig, and tell him to make haste, Mrs.

Hill."

Mrs. Hill departed on her errand, and Miss Henderson's jeweled fingers were flying over the polished keys once more. Presently she twirled around again, and called out: "Miss Clowrie."

"I wish Laura would come!" Miss Henderson said, pulling out her watch, "and I wish she would fetch a dozen people with her. I feel just in the humor for a ball to-night."

She talked to Catty Clowrie vivaciously, and to Mrs. Hill, because she was just in the mood for talking, and rattled off brilliant sonatas between whiles. But she was impatient for Laura's coming, and kept jerking out her watch every five minutes, to look at the hour.

Miss Blair made her appearance at last, and not alone. There was a gentleman in the background, but Miss B. rushed with such a frantic little scream of delight into the arms of her "dear, darling Olly," and so hugged and kissed her, that, for the first moment or two, it was not very easy to see who it was. Extricating herself, laughing and breathless, from the gushing Miss Blair, Olive looked at her companion, and saw the amused and handsome face of Captain Cavendish.