Aikenside Part 14

Mrs. Noah noted all this, and thinking within herself:

"I orto have took him in hand long ago," she came up to him and said kindly, soothingly: "We shall all miss Maddy; I as much as any one, but I do think it best for her to go to school; and so, after tea, I'll manage to keep Jessie with me, and send Maddy to you, while you tell her about Lucy and the plan."

Guy nodded a little jerking kind of a nod, in token of his a.s.sent, and then with that perversity which prompts women particularly to press a subject after enough has been said upon it, Mrs. Noah, as she turned to leave the room, gave vent to the following:

"You know, Guy, as well as I, that pretty and smart as she is, Maddy is really beneath you, and no kind of a match, even if you wan't as good as married, which you be;" and the good lady left the room in time to escape seeing the sparks fly up the chimney, as Guy now made a most vigorous use of the poker, and so did not finish the scorching process commenced on the end of his boot.

Mrs. Noah's last remark awakened in Guy a Singular train of thought.

Yes, Maddy was his inferior as the world saw matters, and settling himself in the chair he tried to fancy what that same world would say if he should make Maddy his wife. Of course he had no such intention, he was just imagining something which never could possibly happen, because in the first place he wouldn't marry Maddy Clyde if he could, and he couldn't if he would! Still, it was not an unpleasant occupation fancying what folks, and especially Agnes, would say if he did, and so he sat dreaming about it until the bell rang for supper, when with a nervous start he woke from the reverie, and wishing the whole was over, started for the supper.

CHAPTER XIV. -- MADDY AND LUCY.

Supper was over, and Guy was back again in his library. He had not stopped as he usually did, to romp with Jessie or talk to Maddy Clyde, until it was so dark that he could not see her sparkling face, but had come directly back, dropping the heavy curtains and piling fresh coal upon the fire. Mrs. Noah had lighted the lamps and then gone after Maddy, explaining to Jessie how she must stay with her while Maddy went to Mr. Guy, who wanted to talk with her.

"Is he angry with me, Mrs. Noah?" and remembering his moody looks when she went in quest of the book, Maddy felt her heart misgive her as to what might be the result of an interview with Guy.

Mrs. Noah, however, rea.s.sured her, and Maddy stole for a moment to her own room to see how she was looking. The crimson dress, with its soft edge of lace about the slender throat, became her well, and smoothing the folds of her black silk ap.r.o.n, whose jaunty shoulder pieces gave her a very girlish appearance, she went down to where Guy was waiting for her. He heard her coming, and involuntarily drew nearer to him the chair where he intended she should sit. But Maddy took instead a stool, and leaning her elbow on the chair, turned her face fully toward him, waiting for him to speak.

"Maddy," he began, "are you happy here at Aikenside?"

"Oh, yes, very, very happy," and Maddy's soft eyes shone with the happiness she tried to express.

It was at least a minute before he spoke again, and when he did, it came out how he had concluded it best to send her and Jessie to school, for a year or two at least; not that he was tired of teaching her, but it would be better for her, he thought, to mingle with other girls and learn the ways of the world. Aikenside would still be her home, still the place where her vacations would be spent with Jessie if she chose, and then he spoke of New York as the place he had in view, and asked her what she thought of it.

Maddy was too much stunned to think of anything at first. That the good she had coveted most should be placed within her grasp, and by Guy Remington too, was almost too much to credit. She was happy at Aikenside, but she had never expected her life there to continue very long, and had often wished that when it ended she might devise some means of entering a seminary as other young ladies did. But she had never dreamed of being sent to school by Guy, nor could she conceive of his motive. He hardly knew himself, only he liked her, and wished to do something for her. This was his reply to her tearful question:

"Oh, Mr. Remington, you are so good to me; what makes you?"

He liked her, and all over Maddy's face there spread a beautiful flush as the words rang in her ears. And then she told Guy how much she wished to be a teacher, and so take care of her grandparents and her poor Uncle Joseph. It seemed almost cruel for that young creature to be burdened with the care of those three half-helpless people, and Guy shuddered just as he usually did when he a.s.sociated Maddy with them, but when he listened while she told him of all the castles she had built, and in every one of which there was a place for "our folks," as she termed them, it was more in the form of a blessing than a caress that his hand rested on her shining hair.

"You are a good girl, Maddy," he said, "and I am glad now that I have concluded to send you where you can be better fitted for the office you mean to fill than you could be here, but I shall miss you sadly. I like little girls, and though you can hardly be cla.s.sed there now, you seem to me much like Jessie, and I take pleasure in doing for you as I would for her. Maddy---"

Guy stopped, uncertain what to say next, while Maddy's eyes again looked up inquiringly.

He was going now to tell "the little girl much like Jessie" of Lucy Atherstone, and the words would not come at first.

"Maddy," he said, again blushing guiltily, "I have said I liked you, and so I hope will some one else. I have written of you to her."

Up to this point Maddy had a vague idea that he meant the doctor, but the "her" dispelled that thought, and a most inexplicable feeling of numbness crept over her as she asked faintly:

"Written to whom?"

Guy did not look at Maddy. He only knew that her head moved out from beneath his hand as he replied:

"To Miss Atherstone--Miss Lucy Atherstone. Have you never heard of her?"

No, Maddy never had, and with that same numbness she could not understand, she listened while Guy told her who Lucy Atherstone was, and why she was not at that moment the mistress of Aikenside. There was no reason why Guy should be excited, but he was, and he talked very rapidly, never once glancing at Maddy until he had finished speaking.

She was looking at him intently, wondering if he could hear as she did the beatings of her heart. Had her life depended upon it, she could not at first have spoken, for the numbness which, like bands of steel, seemed to press all the feeling out of it. She did not know why it was that hearing of Lucy Atherstone should affect her so. Surely she ought to be glad for Guy that he possessed the love of so sweet a creature as he described her to be. He was glad, she knew, he talked so energetically--so much as if it were a pleasure to talk; and she was glad, too, only it had taken her so by surprise to know that Mr. Guy, whom she had rather considered as exclusively her own and Jessie's was engaged, and that some time, before long it might be, Aikenside would really have a mistress. She did not quite understand Guy's last words, although she was looking at him, and he asked her twice if she would like to see Lucy's picture ere she comprehended what he meant.

"Yes," came faintly from the parted lips, about which there was a slight quiver as she put up her hand to take the case Guy drew from his bosom.

Turning it to the light she gazed silently upon the sweet young face, which seemed to return her gaze with a look as earnest and lifelike as her own.

"What do you think of her--of my Lucy? Is she not pretty?" Guy asked, bending down so that his dark hair swept against Maddy's, while his warm breath touched her burning cheeks.

"Yes, she's beautiful, oh! so beautiful, and happy, too. I wish I had been like her. I wish--" and Maddy burst into a most uncontrollable fit of weeping, her tears dropping like rain upon the inanimate features of Lucy Atherstone.

Guy looked at her amazed, his own heart throbbing with a keen pang of something undefinable as he listened to her stormy weeping. What did ail her? he wondered. Could it be that the evil against which he was providing had really come upon her? Was Maddy more interested in him than he supposed? He hoped not, though with a man's vanity he felt a slight thrill of satisfaction in thinking that it might be so. Guy knew this feeling was not worthy of him, and he struggled to cast it off, while he asked Maddy why she cried.

Child as she was, the real cause of her tears never entered her brain, and she answered:

"I can't tell why, unless I was thinking how different Miss Atherstone is from me. She's rich and handsome. I am poor and homely, and--"

"No, Maddy, you are not;" and Guy interrupted her.

Gently lifting up her head, he smoothed back her hair, and keeping a hand on each side of her face, said, pleasantly:

"You are not homely. I think you quite as pretty as Lucy; I do, really,"

he continued, as her eyes kindled at the compliment. "I am going to write to her to-night, and shall tell her more about you. I want you to like each other very much when she comes, so that you may live with us.

Aikenside would not be Aikenside without you, Maddy."

In all his wooings of Lucy Atherstone, Guy's voice had never been tenderer in its tone than when he said this to Maddy, whose lip quivered again, and who involuntarily laid her head now upon his knee as she cried a second time, not noisily, but quietly, softly, as if this crying did her good. For several minutes they sat there thus, the nature of their thoughts known only to each other, for neither spoke, until Maddy, half ashamed of her emotions, lifted up her head, and said:

"I do not know what made me cry, only I'd been so happy here that I guess I'd come to think that you only liked Jessie and me. Of course I knew that some time you would see and think all the world of somebody else, but I did not expect it so soon. I am afraid Miss Atherstone will not fancy me, and I know most I shall not feel as free here, after she comes, as I do now. Then your being so good, sending me to school, helped me to cry more, and so I was very foolish. Don't tell Miss Atherstone that I cried. Tell her, though, how beautiful she is, and how glad I am that she loves you, and is going to be your wife."

Maddy's voice was very steady in its tone. She evidently meant what she said, but Guy, the bad man, did not feel as graciously as he ought to have felt in knowing that Maddy Clyde was glad "Lucy loved him, and was to be his wife."

Guy was rather uncomfortable, and as Maddy was in some way a.s.sociated with his discomfort, he did not oppose her when she arose to leave him.

Had Maddy been more a woman, or less a child, she would have seen that it was well for her to know of Lucy Atherstone before her feelings for Guy Remington had a.s.sumed a definite form. As it was, she never dreamed how near she was to loving Aikenside's young heir; and while talking with Jessie of the grand times they should have at school, she marveled at that little round spot of pain which was burning at her heart, or why she should wish that Guy would not speak of her in his letter to Lucy Atherstone.

But Guy did speak of her, frankly confessing the interest he felt in her, telling just how people were beginning to talk, and asking Lucy if she cared, declaring that if she did, he would not see Maddy Clyde any more than was necessary. In a little less than four weeks there came an answer from Lucy, who, with health somewhat improved, had returned to England, and wrote to Guy from Brighton, where she expected to spend the summer, half hoping Guy might join her there, though she could not urge it, as mamma still insisted that she was not able to take upon herself the duties of a wife. Then she spoke of Maddy Clyde, saying "She was not one bit jealous of her dear Guy, Of course ignorant, meddling people, of whom she feared there were a great many in America, would gossip, but he was not to mind them." Then she said that if Maddy were willing, she would so much like her picture, as she had a curiosity to know just how she looked, and if Maddy pleased, "would she write a few lines, so as not to seem so much a stranger?"

Lucy Atherstone had been educated to think a great deal of birth, and blood, and family, and Guy never did a wiser thing than when he told her that according to English views, Maddy was a lady. It went far toward reconciling Lucy to his interest in one whom her haughtier and more sanguine mother called a rival, advising her mother to ignore her altogether. But Lucy's was a different nature, and though it cost her pride a pang, she asked for a line from Maddy, partly to mortify that pride, and partly to prove to Guy how free she was from jealousy.

"Darling little Lucy, I do love her very dearly," was Guy's comment, as he finished reading her letter, feeling somewhat as if her mother were a kind of cruel ogress, bent on preventing him from being happy. Then, as he remembered Lucy's hope that he might join her, and thought how much easier of access New York was than Brighton, he said, half petulantly:

"I've been to England for nothing times enough. When that mother of hers says I may have Lucy, I'll go again, but not before. It don't pay."

And crushing the letter into his pocket, he went out upon the piazza where were a.s.sembled Maddy, Jessie and Mrs. Agnes, the latter of whom had come to Aikenside the day before.

At first she had objected to the boarding-school arrangement, saying Jessie was too young, but Guy as usual had overruled her objections, as he had those of Grandpa Markham, and it was now a settled thing that Maddy and Jessie both should go to New York, Mrs. Agnes to accompany them if she chose, and having a general supervision of her child. This was Guy's plan, the one which had prevailed with the fashionable woman, who, tired of Boston, was well pleased with the prospect of a life in New York. Guy's interest in Maddy was wholly inexplicable to her, unless she explained it on the princ.i.p.al that in the Remington nature there was a fondness for governesses, as had been exemplified in her own history.

That Guy would ever marry Maddy she doubted, but the mere possibility of it made her set her teeth firmly together as she thought how embarra.s.sing it would be to acknowledge as the mistress of Aikenside the little girl whom she had sought to banish from her table. Since her return she had had no opportunity of judging for herself how matters stood, and was consequently much relieved when, as Guy joined them, he began at once to speak of Lucy, telling of the letter, and her request for Maddy's picture.