Aikenside Part 20

How chatty and social he was, trying to cheer Maddy up and make her forget that such a thing as death had so lately found entrance there; talking of Jessie, of Aikenside, of the pleasant little time they would have during the vacation, and of the next term at school, when Maddy, as one of the graduating cla.s.s, would not be kept in as strictly as heretofore, but allowed to see more of the city. Maddy felt as if she should die for the pain tugging at her heart, while she listened to him and knew that the pictures he was drawing were not for her. Her place was there; and after the breakfast was over and Flora had cleared the dishes away, she shut the door, so that they might be alone, and then standing before Guy, she told him of her resolution, begging of him to help her and not make it harder to bear by devising means for her to escape what she felt to be an imperative duty. Guy had expected something like this and was prepared, as he thought, to combat all her arguments; so when she had finished, he replied that of course he did not wish to interfere with her duty, but there might be a question as to what really was her duty, and it seemed to him he was better able to judge of that than herself. It was not right for her to bury herself there while her education was unfinished, when another could do as well.

Her superior talents were given to her to improve, and how could she improve them in Honedale; besides her grandfather did not expect her to stay. Guy had talked with him while she was asleep, and the matter was all arranged; a competent woman was to be hired to take charge of the domestic arrangements, and if it seemed desirable, two should be procured; anything to leave Maddy free.

"And grandpa consented to this willingly?" Maddy said, feeling a throb of pleasure at thoughts of release. But Guy could not answer that the grandfather consented willingly.

"He thinks it best. When he comes back you can ask him yourself," he said, just as Uncle Joseph, opening the door, brought their interview to a close by asking very meekly, "if it would please the Lord Governor to let him spit!"

The blood rushed at once to Maddy's face, and she not repress a smile, white Guy laughed aloud, saying to her softly: "For your sake, I tried my skill to stop what I knew must annoy you. Pardon me if I did wrong;"

then turning to Uncle Joseph, he gave the desired permission, together with the promise of a handsome spittoon, which should be sent down on the morrow. With a bow Uncle Joseph turned away, muttering to himself, "High doings now Martha's gone; but new lords, new laws. I trust he's not going to live here;" and slyly he asked Flora if the Lord Governor had brought his things!

At this point Grandpa Markham came in, and to him Guy appealed at once to know if he were not willing for Maddy to return to school.

"I said she might if she thought best," was the reply, spoken so sadly that Maddy's arms were at once twined around the old man's neck, while she said to him:

"Tell me honestly which you prefer. I'd like so much to go to school, but I am not sure I should be happy there, knowing how lonely you were here at home. Say, grandpa, which would you rather now, honor bright?"

and Maddy tried to speak playfully, though her heart-beats were almost audible as she waited for the answer.

Grandpa could not deceive. He wanted his darling sorely, and he wanted her to be happy, he said. Perhaps they would get on just as well without her. When Mr. Guy was talking it looked as if they might, he made it all so plain, but the sight of Maddy was a comfort. She was all he had left.

Maybe he shouldn't live long to pester her, and if he didn't wouldn't she always feel better for having stayed with her old grandpa to the last?

He looked very pale and thin, and his hair was white as snow. He could not live many years, and turning resolutely from Guy, who, so long as he held her eye, controlled her, Maddy said:

"I've chosen once for all. I'll stay with grandpa till he dies," and with a convulsive sob she clung tightly to his neck, as if fearful that without such told on him her resolution would give way.

It was in vain that Guy strove to change Maddy's resolution. She was wholly decided, and late in the afternoon he rode back to Aikenside, a disappointed man, with, however, the feeling that Maddy had done right, and that he respected her all the more for withstanding the temptation.

CHAPTER XIX. -- LIFE AT THE COTTAGE.

It was arranged that Flora should for the present at least remain at the cottage, and Maddy accepted the kindness gratefully. She had become so much accustomed to being cared for by Guy that she almost looked upon it as a matter of course, and did not think of what others might possibly say, but when, in as delicate a manner as possible Guy suggested furnishing the cottage in better style, even proposing to modernize it entirely in the spring, Maddy objected at once. "They were already indebted to him for more than they could ever pay," she said, and she would not suffer it. So Guy submitted, though it grated upon his sense of the beautiful and refined terribly, to see Maddy amid so humble surroundings. Twice a week, and sometimes oftener, he rode down to Honedale, and Maddy felt that without these visits life would hardly have been endurable.

During the vacation Jessie spent a part of the time with her, but Agnes resolutely resisted all Guy's entreaties that she would at least call once on Maddy, who had expressed a wish to see her, and who, on account of her grandfather's health, and the childishness with which Uncle Joseph clung to her, could not well come up to Aikenside. Agnes would not go down, neither would she give other reason for her obstinacy than the apparently foolish one that she did not wish to see the crazy man.

Still she did not object to Jessie's going as often as she liked, and she sent by her many little delicacies from the larder at Aikenside, some for grandpa, but most for Uncle Joseph, who prized highly everything coming from "the madam," and sent back to her more than one strangely worded message which made the proud woman's eyes overflow when sure that no one could see her. But this kind of intercourse came to an end at last. The vacation was over, Jessie had gone back to school, and Maddy began in sober earnest the new life before her. Flora, it is true, relieved her of all household drudgery, but no one could share the burden of care and anxiety pressing so heavily upon her, anxiety for her grandfather, whose health seemed failing so fast, and who always looked so disturbed if a shadow were resting on her bright face, or her voice were less cheerful in its tone, and care for the imbecile Joseph, who clung to her as a puny child clings to its mother, refusing to be cared for by any one else, and often requiring of her more than her strength could endure for a great length of time. She it was who gave him his breakfast in the morning, amused him through the day, and then, after he was in bed at night, often sat by his side till a late hour, singing to him old songs, or telling Bible stories until he fell away to sleep.

Then if he awoke, as he frequently did, there was a cry for Maddy, and the soothing process had to be repeated, until the tired, pale watcher ceased to wonder that her grandmother had died so suddenly, wondering rather that she had lived so long and borne so much.

Those were dark, wearisome days to Maddy, and the long, cold winter was gone from the New England hills, and the early buds of spring were coming up by the cottage door, the neighbors began to talk of the change which had come over the young girl, once so full of life and health, but now so languid and pale. Still Maddy was not unhappy, nor was the discipline too severe, for by it she learned at last the great object of life; learned to take her troubles and cares to One who helped her bear them so cheerfully, that those who pitied her most never dreamed how heavy was her burden, so patiently and sweetly she bore it. Occasionally there came to her letters from the doctor, but latterly they gave her less pleasure than pain, for as sure as she read one of his kind, friendly messages of sympathy and remembrance, the tempter whispered to her that though she did not love him as she ought to love her husband, yet a life with him was far preferable to the life she was living, and a receipt of his letters always gave her a pang which lasted until Guy came down to see her, when it usually disappeared. Agnes was now at Aikenside, and thus Maddy frequently had Jessie at the cottage, but Agnes never came, and Maddy little guessed how often the proud woman cried herself to sleep after listening to Jessie's recital of all Maddy had to do for the crazy man, and how patiently she did it. He had taken a fancy that Maddy must tell him stories of Sarah, describing her as she was now, not as she used to be when he knew her, but now. "What is she now? How does she look? What does she wear? Tell me, tell me!" he would plead, until Maddy, forced to tell him something, and having distinctly in her mind but one fashionable woman such as she fancied Sarah might be, told him of Agnes Remington, describing her as she was in her mature beauty, with her heavy flowing curls, her brilliant color, her flashing diamonds and costly laces, and Uncle Joseph, listening to her with parted lips and hushed breath, would whisper softly, "Yes, that's Sarah, beautiful Sarah; but tell me--does she ever think of me, or of that time in Hie orchard when I wove the apple blossoms in her hair, where the diamonds are now? She loved me then; she told me so. Does she know how sick, and sorry, and foolish I am?--how the aching in my poor, simple brain is all for her, and how you, Maddy, are doing for me what it is her place to do? Had I a voice," and the crazy man now grew excited, as, raising himself in bed, he gesticulated wildly, "had I a voice to reach her, I'd cry shame on her, to let you do her work, let you-wear your young life and fresh, bright beauty all away for me, whom she ruined."

The voice he craved, or the echo of it, did reach her, for Jessie had been present when the fancy first seized him to hear of Sarah, and in the shadowy twilight she told her mother all, dwelling most upon the touching sadness of his face when he said, "Does she know how sick and sorry I am?"

The pillow which Agnes pressed that night was wet with tears, while in her heart was planted a germ of grat.i.tude and respect for the young girl doing her work for her. All that she could do for Maddy without going directly to her, she did, devising many articles of comfort, sending her fruit and flowers, the last new book, or whatever else she thought might please her, and always finding a willing messenger in Guy. He was miserable, and managed when at home to make others so around him. The sight of Maddy bearing her burden so uncomplainingly almost maddened him. Had she fretted or complained could bear it better, he said, but he did not see the necessity for her to lose all her spirit or interest in everything and everybody. Once when he hinted as much to Maddy, he had been awed into silence by the subdued expression of her face as she told him in part what it was which helped her to bear and made the rough places so smooth. He had seen something like this in Lucy, when paroxysms of pain were racking her delicate frame, but he could not understand it; he only knew it was something he could not touch--something against which his arguments beat helplessly, and so, with an added respect for Maddy Clyde, he smothered his impatience, and determining to help her all he could, rode down to Honedale every day, instead of twice a week, as he had done before.

Attentions so marked could not fail to be commented upon; and while poor, unsuspecting Maddy was deriving so much comfort from his daily visits, deeming that day very long which did not bring him to her, the Honedale gossips, of which there were many, were busy with her affairs, talking them over at their numerous tea-drinkings, discussing them in the streets, and finally at a quilting, where they met in solemn conclave, deciding, that, "for a girl like Maddy Clyde it did not look well to have so much to do with that young Remington, who, everybody knew, was engaged to a somebody in England."

"Yes, and would have been married long ago, if it wasn't for this foolin' with Maddy," chimed in Mrs. Joel Spike, throwing the chalk across the quilt to her sister, Tripheny Marvel, who wondered if Maddy thought he'd ever have her.

"Of course he wouldn't. He knew what he was about. He was not green enough to marry Grandpa Markham's daughter; and if she didn't look out, she'd get herself into a pretty sc.r.a.pe. It didn't look well, anyhow, for her to be putting on airs, as she had done ever since big folks took her up, and she guessed she wouldn't be beholden to n.o.body for her larnin'."

All this and much more was discussed, and by the time the patchwork thing was done, there remained but little to be said either for or against Guy Remington and Maddy Clyde which had not been said by either friend or foe.

Among the invited guests at that quilting was the wife of Farmer Green, Maddy's warmest friend in Honedale, and the one who did her best to defend her against the attacks of those whose remarks she well knew were caused more by envy than any personal dislike to Maddy, who used to be so much of a pet until her superior advantages separated her in a measure from them. Good Mrs. Green was sorely tried. Without in the least blaming Maddy, she, too, had been troubled at the frequency of Guy's Visits to the cottage. It was not friendship alone which took him there, she was sure; and knowing that he was engaged, she feared for Maddy's happiness at first, and afterward, when people began to talk, she feared for her good name. Something must be done, and though she dreaded it greatly, she was the one to do it. Accordingly, next day she started for the cottage, which Guy had just left, and this, in her opinion, accounted for the bright color in Maddy's cheek and the sparkle in her eye. Guy had been there, bringing and leaving a world of sunshine, but, alas, his chances for coming ever again as he had done were fearfully small, when, at the close of Mrs. Green's well-meant visit, Maddy lay on her bed, her white, frightened face buried in the pillows, and herself half wishing she had died before the last hour had come, with the terrible awakening it had brought; awakening to the fact that of all living beings, Guy Remington was the one she loved the best--the one without whose presence it seemed to her she could not live, but without which she now knew she must.

With the best of intentions Mrs. Green had made a bungle of the whole affair, but had succeeded in giving Maddy a general impression that folks were talking awfully about Guy's coming there, and doing for her so much like an accepted lover, when everybody knew he was engaged, and wouldn't be likely to marry a poor girl if he wasn't; that unless she wanted to be ruined teetotally, and lose all her friends, she must contrive to stop his visits, and not see him so much.

"Yes, I'll do anything, only please leave me now," Maddy gasped, her face as white as ashes and her eyes fixed pleadingly upon Mrs. Green, who, having been young herself, guessed the truth, and, as she arose to go, laid her motherly hand on Maddy's head, saving kindly:

"Poor child, it's hard to bear now, but you'll get over it in time."

"Get over it," Maddy moaned, as she shut and bolted the door after Mrs.

Green, and then threw herself upon the bed, "I never shall till I die."

She almost felt that she was dying then, so desolate and so dreary the future looked to her. What was life worth without Guy, and why had she been thrown so much in his way; why permitted to love him as she knew she did, if she must lose him now? Maddy could not cry; there was a tightness about her eyes, and a keen, cutting pain about her heart as she tried to pray for strength to do what was right--strength to cast Guy Remington from her heart where it was a sin for him to be; and then she asked to be forgiven for the wrong she had unwittingly done to Lucy Atherstone, who trusted implicitly, and who, in her last letter, had said:

"If I had not so much faith in Guy I should be jealous of one who has so many opportunities for stealing his heart from me. But I trust you, Maddy Clyde. You would not do a thing to harm me, I am sure, and to lose Guy now, after these years of cruel waiting, would kill me."

Sweet Lucy, there was in her heart a faint stirring of fear lest Maddy Clyde might be a shadow in her pathway, else she had never written that to her. But Lucy's cause was safe in Maddy's hands. Always too high-souled to do a treacherous act, she was now sustained by another and holier principle, which of itself would have kept her from the wrong. But for a few moments Maddy abandoned herself to the bliss of fancying what it would be to be loved by Guy Remington, even as she loved him. And as she thought, there crept into her heart the certainty that in some degree he did love her; that his friendship was more than a mere liking for the girl to whom he had been so kind. In Lucy's absence she was essential to his happiness, and that was why he sought her society so much. Remembering everything that had pa.s.sed, but more particularly the incidents of that memorable night ride to Honedale with all that had followed since, she could not doubt it, and softly to herself she whispered, "He loves me, he loves me," while little throbs of joy beat all over her heart; but only for an instant, and then the note of joy was changed to sorrow as she thought how she must henceforth seek to kill that love, both for her own sake and Lucy's. Guy must not come there any more. She could not bear it now, even if the neighbors had never meddled with her. She could not see him as she had done, and not betray her real feelings toward him. He had been there that day; he would come again tomorrow. She could see him now just as he would look coming up the walk, easy and self-possessed, confident of his reception, his handsome face beaming all over with kind thoughtfulness for her, and his voice full of tender concern as he asked how she was, and bade Flora see that she did not overtax herself, and all this must cease. She had seen it, heard it for the last time. No wonder that Maddy's heart fainted within her, as she thought how desolate, how dreary would be the days when Guy no longer came. But the victory was gained at last, and strength imparted for the task she had to do.

Going to the table she opened her portfolio, the gift of Guy, and with her gold pen, also his gift, wrote to him what the neighbors were saying, and that he must come there no more; at least, only once in a great while, because if he did, she could not see him. Then, when this was written, she went down to Uncle Joseph, beginning to call for her, and sat by him as usual, singing to him the songs he loved so well, and which this night pleased him especially, because the voice which sang them was so plaintive, so full of woe. Would he never go to sleep, or the hand which held hers so firmly relax its hold? Never, it seemed to Maddy, who sat and sang, while the night-bird on a distant tree, awakened by the low song, uttered a responsive note, and the hours crept on to midnight. Human nature could endure no more, and when the crazy man said to her, "Now sing of Him who died on Calvary," Maddy's answer was a gaping cry as she fell fainting on the pillow.

"It was only a nervous headache," she said to the frightened Flora, who came at Uncle Joseph's call, and helped her young mistress up to bed.

"She should be better in the morning, and she would rather be alone."

So Flora left her there, but went often to her door, until a.s.sured by the low breathing sound that Maddy was sleeping at last. It was a heavy sleep, and when Maddy awakened from it the pain in her temples was there still; she could not rise, and half glad that she could not, inasmuch as her illness would be a reason why she could not see Guy if he came. She did not know he was here already, until she heard his voice speaking to her grandfather. It was later than she imagined, and he had ridden down early because he could not stay away.

"I can't see him, Flora," Maddy said, when the latter came up with the message that Mr. Remington was there with his buggy, and asked if a little ride would not do her good. "I can't see him, but give him this,"

and she placed in Flora's hand the note, baptized with so many tears and prayers, and the contents of which made Guy furious; not at her, but at the neighbors, the inquisitive, envious, ignorant, meddlesome neighbors, who had dared to talk of him, or to breathe a suspicious word against Maddy Clyde. He would see; he would make them sorry for it; they should take back every word; and they should beg Maddy's forgiveness for the pain they had caused her.

All this, and much more, Guy thought, as with Maddy's note in his hand he walked up and down the sitting-room, raging like a young lion, and threatening vengeance upon everybody. This was not the first intimation Guy had received of the people's gossip, for only that morning Mrs. Noah had hinted that his course was not at all calculated to do Maddy any good, while Agnes had repeated to him some things which she had heard touching the frequency of his visits to Honedale; but these were nothing to the calmly worded message which banished him effectually from Maddy's presence. He knew Maddy, and he knew, she meant what she wrote, but he could not have it so. He must see her; he would see her; and so for the next half hour Flora was the bearer of written messages to and from Maddy's room; messages of earnest entreaty on the one hand, and of firm denial on the other. At last Maddy wrote:

"If you care for me in the least, or for my respect, leave me, and do not come again until I send for you. I am not insensible to your kindness. I feel it all; but the world is nearer right than you suppose.

It does not look well for you to come here so much, and I prefer that you should not. Justice to Lucy requires that you stay away."

That ended it! That roused up Guy's pride, and writing back:

"You shall be obeyed. Good-by." He sprang into his buggy, and Maddy, listening, with head and heart throbbing alike, heard him as he drove furiously away.

Those were long, dreary days which followed, and but for her grandfather's increasing feebleness Maddy would almost have died.

Anxiety for him, however, kept her from dwelling too much upon herself, but the excitement sad the care wore upon her sadly, robbing her eye of its l.u.s.ter and her cheek of its remaining bloom, making even Mrs. Noah cry when she came one day with Jessie to see how they were getting on.

She had heard from Guy of his banishment, and now that he stayed away, she was ready to step in; so she came, laden with sympathy and other more substantial comforts brought from the Aikenside larder.

Maddy was glad to see her, and for a time cried softly on her bosom, while Mrs. Noah's tears kept company with hers. Not a word was said of Guy, except when Jessie told her he was gone to Boston, and it was so stupid at home without him.

With more than her ordinary discretion, Flora kept to herself what had pa.s.sed when Guy was last there, so Mrs. Noah knew nothing except what he had told her, and what she read in Maddy's white, suffering face. This last was enough to excite all her pity, and she treated the young girl with the most motherly kindness saying all night, and herself taking care of grandpa, who was now too ill to sit up. There seemed to be no disease preying upon him, nothing save old age, and the loss of one who for more than forty years had shared all his joy and sorrow. He could not live without her, and one night, three weeks after Guy's dismissal, he said to Maddy, as she was about to leave him:

"Sit with me, darling, for a little while, if you are not too tired.

Your grandmother seems near me to-night, and so does Alice, your mother.

Maybe I'll be with them before another day. I hope I may if G.o.d is willing, and there's much I would say to you."