Aikenside Part 7

Ain't that funny? You know my first ma is dead. The doctor tells us about you when he comes to Aikenside. I wish he'd come oftener, for I love him a bushel--don't you? Yours respectfully,

"JESSIE AGNES REMINGTON.

"P. S.--I am going to tuck this in just for fun, right among the buds, where you must look for it."

This note Maddy read and reread until she knew it by heart, particularly the part relating to Guy. Hitherto she had not particularly liked her name, greatly preferring that it should have been Eliza Ann, or Sarah Jane; but the knowing that Guy Remington fancied it made a vast difference, and did much toward reconciling her. She did not even see the clause, "and the doctor, too." His attentions and concern she took as a matter of course, so quietly and so constantly had they been given.

The day was very long now which did not bring him to the cottage; but she missed him much as she would have missed her brother, if she had had one, though her pulse always quickened and her cheeks glowed when she heard him at the gate. The inner power did not lie deeper than a great friendliness for one who had been instrumental in saving her life.

They had talked over the matter of her examination, the doctor blaming himself more than was necessary for his ignorance as to what was required of a teacher; but when she asked who was his proxy, he had again answered, evasively: "A friend from Boston."

And this he did to shield Guy, whom he knew was enshrined in the little maiden's heart as a paragon of all excellence.

CHAPTER VII. -- THE DRIVE.

Latterly the doctor had taken to driving in his buggy, and when Maddy was strong enough he took her with him one day, himself adjusting the shawl which grandma wrapped around her, and pulling a little farther on the white sunbonnet which shaded the sweet, pale face, where the roses were just beginning to bloom again. The doctor was very happy that morning, and so, too, was Maddy, talking to him upon the theme of which she never tired, Guy Remington, Jessie and Aikenside. Was it as beautiful a place as she had heard it was, and didn't he think it would be delightful to live there?

"I suppose Mr. Guy will be bringing a wife there some day when he finds one," and leaning back in the buggy Maddy heaved a little sigh, not at thoughts of Guy Remington's wife, but because she began to feel tired, and thus gave vent to her weariness.

The doctor, however, did not so construe it. He heard the sigh, and for the first time when listening to her as she talked of Guy, a keen throb of pain shot through his heart, a something as near akin to jealousy as it was possible for him then to feel. But all unused as he was to the workings of love he did not at that moment dream of such an emotion in connection with Madeline Clyde. He only knew that something affected him unpleasantly, prompting him, for some reason, to tell Maddy Clyde about Lucy Atherstone, who, in all probability, would one day come to Aikenside as its mistress.

"Yes, Guy will undoubtedly marry," he began, just as over the top of the easy hill they were ascending horses' heads were visible, and the Aikenside carriage appeared in view. "There he is now," he exclaimed, adding quickly: "No, I am mistaken, there's only a lady inside. It must be Agnes."

It was Agnes driving out alone, for the sole purpose of pa.s.sing a place which had a singular attraction for her, the old, red cottage in Honedale. She recognized the doctor, and guessed whom he had with him, Putting up her gla.s.s, for which she had no more need than Jessie, she scrutinized the little figure bundled up in shawls, while she smiled her sweetest smile upon the doctor, showing to good advantage her white teeth, and shaking back her wealth of curls with the air and manner of a young coquettish girl.

"Oh, what a handsome lady! Who is she?" Maddy asked, turning to look after the carriage now swiftly descending the hill.

"That was Jessie's mother, Mrs. Agnes Remington," the doctor replied.

"She'll feel flattered with your compliment."

"I did not mean to flatter. I said what I thought. She is handsome, beautiful, and so young, too. Was that a gold bracelet which flashed so on her arm?"

The doctor presumed it was, though he had not noticed. Gold bracelets were not new to him as they were to Maddy, who continued:

"I wonder if I'll ever wear a bracelet like that?"

"Would you like to?" the doctor asked, glancing at the small white wrist, around which the dark calico sleeve was closely b.u.t.toned, and thinking how much prettier and modest-looking it was than Agnes'

half-bare arms, where the ornaments were flashing.

"Y-e-s," came hesitatingly from Maddy, who had a strong pa.s.sion for jewelry. "I guess I would, though grandpa cla.s.ses all such things with the pomps and vanities which I must renounce when I get to be good."

"And when will that be?" the doctor asked.

Again Maddy sighed, as she replied: "I cannot tell. I thought so much about it while I was sick, that is, when I could think; but now I'm better, it goes away from me some. I know it is wrong, but I cannot help it. I've seen only a bit of pomp and vanity, but I must say that I like what I have seen, and I wish to see more. It's very wicked, I know," she kept on, as she met the queer expression of the doctor's face; "and I know you think me so bad. You are good--a Christian, I suppose?"

There was a strange light in the doctor's eye as he answered, half sadly: "No, Maddy, I am not what you call a Christian, I have not renounced the pomps and vanities yet."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," and Maddy's eyes expressed all the sorrow she professed to feel. "You ought to be, now you've got so old."

The doctor colored crimson, and stopping his horse under the dim shadow of a maple in a little hollow, he said:

"I'm not so very old, Maddy; only twenty-five--only ten years older than yourself; and Agnes' husband was more than twenty years her senior."

The doctor did not know why he dragged that last in, when it had nothing whatever to do with their conversation; but as the most trivial thing often leads to great results, so far from the pang caused by Maddy's thinking him so old, was born the first real consciousness he had ever had that the little girl beside him was very dear, and that the ten years difference between them might prove a most impa.s.sable gulf. With this feeling, it was exceedingly painful for him to hear Maddy's sudden exclamation:

"Oh, oh! over twenty years--that's dreadful. She must be most glad he's dead. I would not marry a man more than five years older than I am."

"Not if you loved him, and he loved you very, very dearly?" the doctor asked, his voice low and tender in its tone.

Wholly unsuspicious of the wild storm beating in his heart, Maddy untied her white sunbonnet, and, taking it in her lap, smoothed back her soft hair, saying, with a long breath: "Oh! I'm so hot," and then, as just thinking of his question, replied: "I shouldn't love him--I couldn't.

Grandma is five years younger than grandpa, mother was five years younger than father, Mrs. Green is five years younger than Mr. Green, and, oh! ever so many. You are warm, too; ain't you?" and she turned her innocent eyes full upon the doctor, who was wiping from his lips the great drops of water, induced not so much by the heat as by the apparent hopelessness of the love he now knew was growing in his heart for Maddy Clyde. Recurring again to Agnes, Maddy said: "I wonder why she married that old man? It is worse than if you were to marry Jessie."

"Money and position were the attractions, I imagine," the doctor said. "Agnes was poor, and esteemed it a great honor to be made Mrs.

Remington."

"Poor, was she?" Maddy rejoined. "Then maybe Mr. Guy will some day marry a poor girl. Do you think he will?"

Again Lucy Atherstone trembled on the doctor's lips, but he did not speak of her--it was preposterous that Maddy should have any thoughts of Guy Remington, who was quite as old as himself, besides being engaged, and with this comforting a.s.surance the doctor turned his horse in the direction of the cottage, for Maddy was growing tired and needed to be at home.

"Perhaps you'll some time change your mind about people so much older, and if you do you'll remember our talk this morning," he said, as he drove up at last before the gate.

Oh, yes! Maddy would never forget that morning or the nice ride they'd had. She had enjoyed it so much, and she thanked him many times for his kindness, as she stood waiting for him to drive away, feeling no tremor whatever when at parting he took and held her hand, smoothing it gently, and telling her it was growing fat and plump again. He was a very nice doctor, much better than she had imagined, she thought, as she went slowly to the house and entered the neat kitchen, where her grandmother sat sh.e.l.ling peas for dinner, and her grandfather in his leathern chair was whispering over his weekly paper.

"Did you meet a grand lady in a carriage?" grandma asked, as Maddy sat down beside her.

"Yes; and Dr. Holbrook said it was Mrs. Remington, from Aikenside, Mr.

Guy's stepmother, and that she was more than twenty years younger than her husband--isn't it dreadful? I thought so; but the doctor didn't seem to," and in a perfectly artless manner Maddy repeated much of the conversation which had pa.s.sed between the doctor and herself, appealing to her grandma to know if she had not taken the right side of the argument.

"Yes, child, you did," and grandma's hands lingered among the light green peas in her pan, as if she were thinking of an entirely foreign subject. "I knows nothing about this Mrs. Remington, only that she stared a good deal at the house as she went by, even looking at us through a gla.s.s, and lifting her spotted veil after she got by. She may have been as happy as a queen with her man, but as a general thing these unequal matches don't work, and had better not be thought on. S'posin'

you should think you was in love with somebody, and in a few years, when you got older, be sick of him. It might do him a sight of harm. That's what spoilt your poor Great-uncle Joseph, who's been in the hospital at Worcester goin' on nine years."

"It was!" and Maddy's face was all aglow with the interest she always evinced whenever mention was made of the one great living sorrow of her grandmother's life--the shattered intellect and isolation from the world of her youngest brother, who, as she said, had for nearly nine long years been an inmate of a madhouse.

"Tell me about it," Maddy continued, bringing a pillow, and lying down upon the faded lounge beneath the window.

"There is no great to tell, only he was many years younger than I.

He's only forty-one now, and was thirteen years older than the girl he wanted. Joseph was smart and handsome, and a lawyer, and folks said a sight too good for the girl, whose folks were just nothing, but she had a pretty face, and her long curls bewitched him. She couldn't have been older than you when he first saw her, and she was only sixteen when they got engaged. Joseph's life was bound up in her; he worshiped the very air she breathed, and when she mittened him, it almost took his life.

He was too old for her, she said, and then right on top of that we heard after a little that she married some big bug, I never knew who, plenty old enough to be her father. That settled it with Joseph; he went into a kind of melancholy, grew worse and worse, till we put him in the hospital, usin' his little property to pay the bill until it was all gone, and now he's on charity, you know, exceptin' what we do. That's what 'tis about your Uncle Joseph, and I warn all young girls of thirteen or fourteen not to think too much of n.o.body. They are bound to get sick of 'em, and it makes dreadful work."

Grandma had an object in telling this to Maddy, for she was not blind to the nature of the doctor's interest in her child, and though it gratified her pride, she felt that it must not be, both for his sake and Maddy's, so she told the sad story of Uncle Joseph as a warning to Maddy, who could scarcely be said to need it. Still it made an impression on her, and all that afternoon she was thinking of the unfortunate man, whom she had seen but once, and that in his prison home, where she had been with her grandfather the only time she had ever ridden in the cars. He had taken her in his arms then, she remembered, and called her his little Sarah. That must have been the name of his treacherous betrothed. She would ask if it were not so, and she did.

"Yes, Sarah Morris, that was her name, and her face was handsome as a doll," grandma replied, and wondering if she were as beautiful as Jessie, or Jessie's mother, Maddy went back to her reveries of the poor maniac, whom Sarah Morris had wronged so cruelly.

CHAPTER VIII. -- SHADOWINGS OF WHAT WAS TO BE.