Aikenside Part 22

There was Guy's letter yet to read, and with a listless indifference she opened it, starting as there dropped into her lap a small _carte de viste_, a perfect likeness of Guy, who sent it, he said, because he wished her to have so much of himself. It would make him happier to know she could sometimes look at him just as he should gaze upon her dear picture after it was a sin to love the original. And this was all the direct reference he made to the past except where he spoke of Lucy, telling how happy she was, and how if anything could reconcile him to his fate, it was the knowing how pure and good and loving was the wife he was getting. Then he wrote of the doctor and Margaret, whom he described as a dashing, brilliant girl, the veriest tease and madcap in the world, and the exact opposite of Maddy.

"It is strange to me why he chose her after loving you," he wrote; "but as they seem fond of each other, their chances of happiness are not inconsiderable."

This letter, so calm, so cheerful in its tone, had a quieting effect on Maddy, who read it twice, and then placing it in her bosom, started for the cottage, meeting on the way with Flora who was seeking for her in great alarm. Uncle Joseph had had a fit, she said, and fallen upon the floor, cutting his forehead badly against the sharp point of the stove.

Hurrying on Maddy found that what Flora had said was true, and sent immediately for the physician, who came at once, but shook his head doubtfully as he examined his patient. There were all the symptoms of a fever, he said, bidding Maddy prepare for the worst. Nothing in the form of trouble could particularly affect Maddy now, and perhaps it was wisely ordered that Uncle Joseph's illness should take her thoughts from herself. Prom the very first he refused to take his medicines from any one save her or Jessie, who with her mother's permission stayed altogether at the cottage, and who, as Guy's sister, was a great comfort to Maddy.

As the fever increased, and Uncle Joseph grew more and more delirious his cries for Sarah were heartrending, making Jessie weep bitterly as she said to Maddy:

"If I knew where this Sarah was I'd go miles on foot to find her and bring her to him."

Something like this Jessie said to her mother when she went for a day to Aikenside, asking her in conclusion if she thought Sarah would go.

"Perhaps," and Agnes brushed abstractedly her long, flowing hair, winding it around her jeweled fingers, and then letting the soft curls fall across her snowy arms.

"Where do you suppose she is?" was Jessie's next question, but if Agnes knew, she did not answer, except by reminding her little daughter that it was past her bedtime.

The next morning Agnes' eyes were very red, as if she had been wakeful the entire night, while her white face fully warranted the headache she professed to have.

"Jessie," she said, as they sat together at their breakfast, "I am going to Honedale to-day, going to see Maddy, and shall leave you here, as I do not care to have us both absent."

Jessie demurred a little at first, but finally yielded, wondering what had prompted this visit to the cottage. Maddy wondered so, too, as from the window she saw Agnes instead of Jessie alighting from the carriage, and was conscious of a thrill of gratification that Agnes would have come to see her. But Agnes' business concerned the sick man, poor Uncle Joseph, who was sleeping when she came, and so did not hear her voice as in the tidy kitchen she talked to Maddy, appearing extremely agitated, and flashing her eyes rapidly from one part of the room to another, resting now upon the tinware hung upon the wall and now upon the gourd swimming in the water pail standing in the old-fashioned sink, with the wooden spout, directly over the pile of stones covering the drain. These things were familiar to the proud woman; she had seen them before, and the sight of them now brought to her a most remorseful regret for the past, while her heart ached cruelly as she wished she had never crossed that threshold, or crossing it had never brought ruin to one of its inmates. Agnes was not the same woman whom we first knew. All hope of the doctor had long since been given up, and as Jessie grew older the mother nature was stronger within her, subduing her selfishness, and making her far more gentle and considerate for others than she had been before. To Maddy she was exceedingly kind, and never more so in manner than now, when they sat talking together in the humble kitchen at the cottage.

"You look tired and sick," she said. "Your cares have been too much for one not yet strong. Let me sit by him till he wakes, and you go up to bed."

Very gladly Maddy accepted the offered relief, and utterly worn out with her constant vigils, she was soon sleeping soundly in her own room, while Flora, in the little shed, or back room of the house, was busy with her ironing. Thus there was none to follow Agnes as she went slowly into the sick-room where Uncle Joseph lay, his thin face upturned to the light, and his lips occasionally moving as he muttered in his sleep.

There was a strange contrast between that wasted imbecile and that proud, queenly woman, but she could remember a time when the superiority was all upon his side, a time when in her childish estimation he was the embodiment of every manly beauty, and the knowledge that he loved her, his sister's little hired girl, filled her with pride and vanity. A great change had come to them both since those days, and Agnes, watching him and smothering back the cry of pain which arose to her lips at sight of him, felt that for the fearful change in him she was answerable.

Intellectual, talented, admired and sought by all he had been once; he was a mere wreck now, and Agnes' breath came in short, quick gasps, as glancing furtively around to see that no one was near, she laid her hand upon his forehead, and parting his thin hair, said, pityingly: "Poor Joseph."

The touch awoke him, and starting up he stared wildly at her, while some memory of the past seemed to be struggling through the misty clouds, obscuring his mental vision.

"Who are you, lady? Who, with eyes and hair like hers?"

"I'm the 'madam' from Aikenside," Agnes said, quite loudly, as Flora pa.s.sed the door. Then when she was gone she added, softly: "I'm Sarah.

Don't you know me? Sarah Agnes Morris."

It seemed for a moment to burst upon him in its full reality, and to her dying day Agnes would never forget the look upon his face, the smile of perfect happiness breaking through the rain of tears, the love, the tenderness mingled with distrust, which that look betokened as he continued gazing at her, but said to her not a word. Again her hand rested on his forehead, and taking it now in his he held it to the light, laughing insanely at its soft whiteness; then touching the costly diamonds which flashed upon him the rainbow hues, he said: "Where's that little bit of a ring I bought for you?"

She had antic.i.p.ated this, and took from her pocket a plain gold ring, kept until that day where no one could find it, and holding it up to him, said: "Here it is. Do you remember it?"

"Yes, yes," and his lips began to quiver with a grieved, injured expression. "He could give you diamonds, and I couldn't. That's why you left me, wasn't it, Sarah--why you wrote that letter which made my head into two? It's ached so ever since, and I've missed you so much, Sarah!

They put me in a cell where crazy people were--oh! so many--and they said that I was mad, when I was only wanting you. I'm not mad now, am I, darling?"

His arm was around her neck, and he drew her down until his lips touched hers. And Agnes suffered it. She could not return the kiss, but she did not turn away from his, and she let him caress her hair, and wind it around his fingers, whispering: "This is like Sarah's, and you are Sarah, are you not?"

"Yes, I am Sarah," she would answer, while the smile so painful to see would again break over his face as he told how much he had missed her, and asked if she had not come to stay till he died.

"There's something wrong," he said; "somebody dead, and seems as if somebody else wanted to die--as if Maddy died ever since the Lord Governor went away. Do you know Governor Guy?"

"I am his stepmother," Agnes replied, whereupon Uncle Joseph laughed so long and loud that Maddy awoke, and, alarmed by the noise, came down to see what was the matter.

Agnes did not hear her, and as she reached the doorway, she started at the strange position of the parties--Uncle Joseph still smoothing the curls which drooped over him, and Agnes saying to him: "You heard his name was Remington, did you not--James Remington?"

Like a sudden revelation it came upon Maddy, and she turned to leave, when Agnes, lifting her head, called her to come in. She did so, and standing upon the opposite side of the bed, she said, questioningly: "You are Sarah Morris?"

For a moment the eyelids quivered, then the neck arched proudly, as if it were a thing of which she was not ashamed, and Agnes answered: "Yes, I was Sarah Agnes Morris; once for three months your grandmother's hired girl, and afterward adopted by a lady who gave me what education I possess, together with that taste for high life which prompted me to jilt your Uncle Joseph when a richer man than he offered himself to me."

That was all she said--all that Maddy ever knew of her history, as it was never referred to again, except that evening, when Agnes said to her, pleadingly: "Neither Guy nor Jessie, nor any one, need know what I have told you."

"They shall not," was Maddy's reply; and from that moment the past, so far as Agnes was concerned, was a sealed page to both. With this bond of confidence between them, Agnes felt herself strangely drawn toward Maddy, while, if it were possible, something of her olden love was renewed for the helpless man who clung to her now instead of Maddy, refusing to let her go; neither had Agnes any disposition to leave him.

She should stay to the last, so she said; and she did, taking Maddy's place, and by her faithfulness and care winning golden laurels in the opinion of the neighbors, who marveled at first to see so gay a lady at Uncle Joseph's bedside, attributing it all to her friendship for Maddy, just as they attributed his calling her Sarah to a crazy freak. She did resemble Sarah Morris a very little, they said; and in Maddy's presence they sometimes wondered where Sarah was, repeating strange things which they had heard of her; but Maddy kept the secret from every one, so that even Jessie never suspected why her mother stayed day after day at the cottage; watching and waiting until the last day of Joseph's life.

She was alone with him then, so that Maddy never knew what pa.s.sed between them. She had left them together for an hour, while she did some errands; and when she returned, Agnes met her at the door, and with a blanched cheek whispered: "He is dead; he died in my arms, blessing you and me; do you hear, blessing me! Surely; my sin is now forgiven?"

CHAPTER XXII. -- BEFORE THE BRIDAL.

There was a fresh grave made in the churchyard, and another chair vacant at the cottage, when Maddy was at last alone. Unfettered by care and anxiety for sick ones, her aching heart was free to go out after the loved ones over the sea, go to the elm-shaded mansion she had heard described so often, and where now two brides were busy with their preparations for the bridal hurrying on so fast. Since the letter read in the smoky, October woods, Maddy had not heard from Guy directly, though Lucy had written since, a few brief lines, telling how happy she was, how strong she was growing, and how much like himself Guy was becoming. Maddy had been less than a woman if the last intelligence had failed to affect her unpleasantly. She did not wish Guy to regret his decision; but to be forgotten so soon after so strong protestations of affection, was a little mortifying, and Maddy's heart throbbed painfully as she read the letter, half hoping it might prove the last she should receive from Lucy Atherstone. Guy had left no orders for any changes to be made at Aikenside; but Agnes, who was largely imbued with a love of bustle and repair, had insisted that at least the suite of rooms intended for the bride should be thoroughly renovated with new paper and paint, carpets and furniture. This plan Mrs. Noah opposed, for she guessed how little Guy would care for the change; but Agnes was resolved, and as she had great faith in Maddy's taste, she insisted that she should go to Aikenside, and pa.s.s her judgment upon the improvements.

It would do her good, she said--little dreaming how much it cost Maddy to comply with her wishes, or how fearfully the poor, crushed heart ached, as Maddy went through the handsome rooms fitted up for Guy's young bride; but Mrs. Noah guessed it all, pitying so much the white-faced girl, whose deep mourning robes told the loss of dear ones by death; but gave no token of that great loss, tenfold worse than death.

"It was wicked in her to fetch you here," she said to Maddy, one day when in Lucy's room she found her sitting upon the floor, with her head bowed down upon the window sill. "But law, she's a triflin' thing, and didn't know 'twould kill you, poor child, poor Maddy!" and Mrs. Noah laid her hand kindly on Maddy's hair. "Maybe you'd better go home," she continued, as Maddy made no reply; "it must be hard, to be here in the rooms, and among the things which by good rights should be yours."

"No, Mrs. Noah," and Maddy's voice was strangely unnatural, as she lifted up her head, revealing a face so haggard and white that Mrs. Noah was frightened, and asked in much alarm if anything new had happened.

"No, nothing; I was going to say that I'd rather stay a little longer where there are signs and sounds of life. I should die to be alone at Honedale to-morrow. I may die here, I don't know. Do you know that to-morrow will be the bridal?"

Yes, Mrs. Noah knew it; but she hoped it might have escaped Maddy's mind.

"Poor child," she said again, "poor child, I mistrust you did wrong to tell him no!"

"Oh, Mrs. Noah, don't tell me that; don't make it harder for me to bear.

The tempter has been telling me so, all day, and my heart is so hard and wicked, I cannot pray as I would. Oh, you don't know how wretched I am!"

and Maddy hid her face in the broad, motherly lap, sobbing so wildly that Mrs. Noah was greatly perplexed, how to act, or what to say.

Years ago, she would have spurned the thought that the grandchild of the old man who had bowed to his own picture should be mistress of Aikenside; but she had changed since then, and could she have had her way, she would have stopped the marriage, and, bringing her boy home, have given him to the young girl weeping so convulsively in her lap.

But Mrs. Noah could not have her way. The bridal guests were, even then, a.s.sembling in that home beyond the sea. She could not call Guy back, and so she pitied and caressed the wretched Maddy, saying to her at last:

"I'll tell you what is impressed on my mind; this Lucy's got the consumption, without any kind of doubt, and if you've no objections to a widower, you may----"

She did not finish the sentence, for Maddy started in horror. To her there was something murderous in the very idea, and she thrust it quickly aside. Guy Remington was not for her, she said, and her wish was to forget him. If she could get through the dreaded to-morrow, she should do better. There had been a load upon her the whole day, a nightmare she could not shake off, and she had come to Lucy's room, in the hope of leaving her burden there, of praying her pain away. Would Mrs. Noah leave her a while, and see that no one came?

The good woman could not refuse, and going out, she left Maddy by the window, watching the sun as it went down, and then watching; the wintry twilight deepen over the landscape, until all things were blended together in one great darkness, and Jessie, seeking for her found her at last, fainting upon the floor.

Maddy was glad of the racking headache, which kept her in her bed the whole of the next day, glad of any excuse to stay away from the family, talking--all but Mrs. Noah--of Guy, and what was transpiring in England.

They had failed to remember the difference in the longitude of the two places; but Maddy forgot nothing, and when the clock struck four, she called Mrs. Noah to her and whispered, faintly: