Cynthia Wakeham's Money Part 13

"Let's count it!" he greedily cried, at last.

But the Appraisers, maintaining their composure, motioned the almost frenzied man aside, and summoning Frank to a.s.sist them, made out a list of the papers, which were most of them valuable, and then proceeded to count the loose bills. The result was to make Huckins' eyes gleam with joy and satisfaction. As the last number left their lips, he threw up his arms in unrestrained glee, and cried:

"I will make you all rich some day. Yes, sirs; I have not the greed of my poor dead sister; I intend to spend what is mine, and have a good time while I live. I don't intend any one to dance over my grave when I am dead."

His att.i.tude was one so suggestive of this very same expression of delight, that more than one who saw him and heard these words shuddered as they turned from him; but he did not care for cold shoulders now, or for any expression of disdain or disapproval. He had seen the fortune of his sister with his own eyes, and for that moment it was enough.

IX.

THE TWO SISTERS.

When Frank returned again to Marston he did not hesitate to tell Edgar that "he had business relations with Miss Cavanagh." This astonished the doctor, who was of a more conservative nature, but he did not mingle his astonishment with any appearance of chagrin, so Frank took heart, and began to dream that he had been mistaken in the tokens which Miss Cavanagh had given of being moved by the news of Dr. Sellick's return.

He went to see her as soon as he had supped with his friend, and this time he was introduced into a less formal apartment. Both sisters were present, and in the moment which followed the younger's introduction, he had leisure to note the similarity and dissimilarity between them, which made them such a delightful study to an interested observer.

Emma was the name of the younger, and as she had the more ordinary and less poetic name, so at first view she had the more ordinary and less poetic nature. Yet as the eye lingered on her touching face, with its unmistakable lines of sadness, the slow a.s.surance gained upon the mind that beneath her quiet smile and gentle self-contained air lay the same force of will which spoke at once in the firm lip and steady gaze of the older woman. But her will was beneficent, and her character n.o.ble, while Hermione bore the evidences of being under a cloud, whose shadow was darkened by something less easily understood than sorrow.

Yet Hermione, and not Emma, moved his heart, and if he acknowledged to himself that a two-edged sword lay beneath the forced composure of her manner, it was with the same feelings with which he acknowledged the scar which offended all eyes but his own. They were both dressed in white, and Emma wore a cl.u.s.ter of snowy pinks in her belt, but Hermione was without ornament. The beauty of the latter was but faintly shadowed in her younger sister's face, yet had Emma been alone she would have stood in his mind as a sweet picture of melancholy young womanhood.

Hermione was evidently glad to see him. Fresh and dainty as this, their living room, looked, with its delicate white curtains blowing in the twilight breeze, there were hours, no doubt, when it seemed no more than a prison-house to these two pa.s.sionate young hearts. To-night cheer and an emanation from the large outside world had come into it with their young visitor, and both girls seemed sensible of it, and brightened visibly. The talk was, of course, upon business, and while he noticed that Hermione led the conversation, he also noticed that when Emma did speak it was with the same clear grasp of the subject which he had admired in the other. "Two keen minds," thought he, and became more deeply interested than ever in the mystery of their retirement, and evident renouncement of the world.

He had to tell them he could do nothing for them unless one or both of them would consent to go to New York.

"The magistrate whom I saw," said he, "asked if you were well, and when I was forced to say yes, answered that for no other reason than illness could he excuse you from appearing before him. So if you will not comply with his rules, I fear your cause must go, and with it whatever it involves."

Emma, whose face showed the greater anxiety of the two, started as he said this, and glanced eagerly at her sister. But Hermione did not answer that glance. She was, perhaps, too much engaged in maintaining her own self-control, for the lines deepened in her face, and she all at once a.s.sumed that air of wild yet subdued suffering which had made him feel at the time of his first stolen glimpse of her face that it was the most tragic countenance he had ever beheld.

"We cannot go," came forth sharply from her lips, after a short but painful pause. "The case must be dropped." And she rose, as if she could not bear the weight of her thoughts, and moved slowly to the window, where she leaned for a moment, her face turned blankly on the street without.

Emma sighed, and her eyes fell with a strange pathos upon Frank's almost equally troubled face.

"There is no use," her gentle looks seemed to say. "Do not urge her; it will be only one grief the more."

But Frank was not one to heed such an appeal in sight of the n.o.ble drooping figure and set white face of the woman upon whose happiness he had fixed his own, though neither of these two knew it as yet. So, with a deprecating look at Emma, he crossed to Hermione's side, and with a slow, respectful voice exclaimed:

"Do not make me feel as if I had been the cause of loss to you. An older man might have done better. Let me send an older man to you, then, or pray that you reconsider a decision which will always fill me with regret."

But Hermione, turning slowly, fixed him with her eyes, whose meaning he was farther than ever from understanding, and saying gently, "The matter is at end, Mr. Etheridge," came back to the seat she had vacated, and motioned to him to return to the one he had just left. "Let as talk of other things," said she, and forced her lips to smile.

He obeyed, and at once opened a general conversation. Both sisters joined in it, and such was his influence and the impulse of their own youth that gradually the depth of shadow departed from their faces and a certain grave sort of pleasure appeared there, giving him many a thrill of joy, and making the otherwise dismal hour one to be happily remembered by him through many a weary day and night.

When he came to leave he asked Emma, who strangely enough had now become the most talkative of the two, whether there was not something he could do for her in New York or elsewhere before he came again.

She shook her head, but in another moment, Hermione having stepped aside, she whispered:

"Make my sister smile again as she did a minute ago, and you will give me all the happiness I seek."

The words made him joyous, and the look he bestowed upon her in return had a promise in it which made the young girl's dreams lighter that night, for all the new cause of anxiety which had come into her secluded life.

X.

DORIS.

Frank Etheridge walked musingly towards town. When half-way there he heard his name p.r.o.nounced behind him in tremulous accents, and turning, saw hastening in his wake the woman who had brought him the message which first took him to Miss Cavanagh's house. She was panting with the haste she had made, and evidently wished to speak to him. He of course stopped, being only too anxious to know what the good woman had to say.

She flushed as she came near to him.

"Oh, sir," she cried with an odd mixture of eagerness and restraint, "I have been wanting to talk to you, and if you would be so good as to let me say what is on my mind, it would be a great satisfaction to me, please, and make me feel a deal easier."

"I should be very glad to hear whatever you may have to tell me," was his natural response. "Are you in trouble? Can I help you?"

"Oh, it is not that," she answered, looking about to see if any curious persons were peering at them through the neighboring window-blinds, "though I have my troubles, of course, as who hasn't in this hard, rough world; it is not of myself I want to speak, but of the young ladies. You take an interest in them, sir?"

It was naturally put, yet it made his cheek glow.

"I am their lawyer," he murmured.

"I thought so," she went on as if she had not seen the evidences of emotion on his part, or if she had seen them had failed to interpret them. "Mr. Hamilton is a very good man but he is not of much use, sir; but you look different, as if you could influence them, and make them do as other people do, and enjoy the world, and go out to church, and see the neighbors, and be natural in short."

"And they do not?"

"Never, sir; haven't you heard? They never either of them set foot beyond the garden gate. Miss Emma enjoys the flower-beds and spends most of her time working at them or walking up and down between the poplars, but Miss Hermione keeps to the house and grows white and thin, studying and reading, and making herself wise--for what? No one comes to see them--that is, not often, sir, and when they do, they are stiff and formal, as if the air of the house was chilly with something n.o.body understood. It isn't right, and it's going against G.o.d's laws, for they are both well and able to go about the world as others do. Why, then, don't they do it? That is what I want to know."

"And that is what everybody wants to know," returned Frank, smiling; "but as long as the young ladies do not care to explain themselves I do not see how you or any one else can criticise their conduct. They must have good reasons for their seclusion or they would never deny themselves all the pleasures natural to youth."

"Reasons? What reasons can they have for actions so extraordinary? I don't know of any reason on G.o.d's earth which would keep me tied to the house, if my feet were able to travel and my eyes to see."

"Do you live with them?"

"Yes; or how could they get the necessaries of life? I do their marketing, go for the doctor when they are sick, pay their bills, and buy their dresses. That's why their frocks are no prettier," she explained.

Frank felt his wonder increase.

"It is certainly a great mystery," he acknowledged. "I have heard of elderly women showing their eccentricity in this way, but young girls!"

"And such beautiful girls! Do you not think them beautiful?" she asked.

He started and looked at the woman more closely. There was a tone in her voice when she put this question that for the first time made him think that she was less simple than her manner would seem to indicate.

"What is your name?" he asked her abruptly.

"Doris, sir."