Hilda's Mascot Part 30

Mrs. Warfield was deeply grieved and disappointed that Fred had given Hilda cause to lose confidence in him so utterly, as she had given evidence in her letter to him. She had intended speaking plainly to him in regard to his heartless conduct, thinking it would influence him in his future companionship with Hilda, and was much disappointed that the summons came for her to return to Dorton before his next visit home.

Her resolutions, like many others depending upon circ.u.mstances, were put aside, for instead of setting out to chide she remained to comfort.

Fred, for the first time in his life, was completely cast down. Ever since receiving Hilda's letter he had been revolving in his mind what he would say when they met, in order to place himself upon the former basis.

The pa.s.sage at arms had aided him, as it had Hilda, to define his feelings. He realized that he loved her, and this time, if never before, was in earnest. It was his intention to offer a humble apology, and to ask a place in her esteem with the eloquence of which he was master, and he did not believe that she would refuse.

His hopes received a blow when he came home and found her gone, and no time specified for her return. He could have shed tears in the bitterness of his soul, and Mrs. Paul Warfield, who suspected how matters stood, shook her shrewd head and agreed with herself that it served him right.

After sending the valentine he hoped to hear a word from Hilda, but in her letter to his mother no special mention was made of him, so he wrote to her imploring her to believe him sincere in his profession of affection for her, and asked for a line bidding him hope. Perry brought the missive from the village post-office and Norah took it to the parlor where Hilda and Mr. Courtney were conversing by the early evening fire-light.

Hilda, with a deep blush, opened and read it and pa.s.sed it to Mr.

Courtney.

"I hope you don't think I expect this of you," he said gently. "Believe me, I have not a particle of jealous curiosity."

"No, sir; I gave it because I wish your advice in regard to answering it, and you could not give it unless you understood the whole affair.

Aunt Sarah has also written to me, and says that Fred deplores his mistake and she hopes I will reconsider the matter, for she knows him to be sincere and pities him."

"It would be well to answer both letters immediately," remarked Mr.

Courtney when he finished the perusal of Fred's letter. "It is far kinder to tell them the relation in which we stand to each other than to allow them to indulge a false hope."

"I do not mind telling Fred," replied Hilda, a flush very like anger coming into her face, "but I do feel sorry to grieve Aunt Sarah. She is as kind to me as an own mother, and I love her so dearly."

"I know it, but it will not be the task to write it that it would be to tell them were you there. I should write at once to both."

"I will do as you advise. I can see that it is the kinder way."

"There is another favor I would ask of you, my dear one, and that is not to address me as 'sir.' It keeps the difference in our ages in very large figures before my eyes."

"I never thought of that," responded Hilda, laughing and blushing.

"I hope you will never feel under more restraint in my company than in that of Fred Warfield or any other person near your own age. I should be grieved to know that we were not in every way congenial and at home with each other."

"I never felt otherwise with you; you have always appeared young to me,"

said Hilda, sincerely.

"Thank you, my darling; I am truly glad to hear this. I have known two instances where the husband was double the age of his wife, and the lady in both cases seemed to be in awe of her husband. I would be miserable to know that you felt so toward me."

"You need not dread my being in awe of you," laughed Hilda. "You were somewhat younger than now when I first became acquainted with you. I suppose that accounts for my lack of deference. We have grown old together."

Mr. Courtney had suggested an early day for their marriage, and there was nothing to prevent except the item of a trousseau, a subject which Hilda, penniless, and having no claim upon a human being, did not consider open for discussion.

Mr. Courtney believed that to be the cause of her reluctance to agree to his suggestion for an early day, and had he not appreciated her fine nature so thoroughly, might have been tempted through the aid of Mrs.

Courtney, to do away with that hindrance. As it was, he could only await Time's adjustment.

Hilda wrote to Mrs. Warfield and to Fred and waited for the second time in her life with keen anxiety for Mrs. Warfield's reply. Would she be wounded because Hilda remained indifferent to the united appeal of mother and son? Would she resent the reticence of Hilda in not giving them knowledge of her attachment to Mr. Courtney in the nearly two years she had been with them and thus misleading Fred?

Smothering the pain in her heart, Mrs. Warfield's letter was candid, cordial and affectionate. She wrote nothing that would mar the happiness of the girl whom she held blameless. She offered her sincere congratulations, and added to the measure of her kindness by enclosing a check for the purchase of a handsome outfit as a wedding present.

There was now nothing to prevent Hilda from acceding to Mr. Courtney's wish to appoint an early day for the marriage, which would be at the home of the Merrymans, Rev. Carl officiating, and the bridal tour followed by a reception at "My Lady's Manor" under the auspices of Mrs.

Courtney and Mrs. Merryman.

As upon a former occasion, Mrs. Courtney offered her a.s.sistance in the matter of shopping, and the offer was accepted gladly by Hilda.

The evening before they were to drive to Baltimore, Mrs. Merryman and Hilda took a walk to the cottage, and upon reaching the gate saw Archie coming down the road from "My Lady's Manor," where he had been the past night and day.

"I am sure he is on his way to 'Fair Meadow,'" said Mrs. Merryman. "Ask him to wait and go with us; he can carry the things you wish to take."

Archie was willing to oblige and followed them up the gra.s.s-grown path.

He sat down upon the door-step while the ladies went inside and opened the windows, letting in the soft evening air, laden with the odors of early spring.

As upon former visits, Hilda went to the desk, let down the lid and searched through the small drawers and other receptacles, but found nothing, and was about to lock it again when the old man entered and stood beside her.

"Archie knows where there is money," he said abruptly.

"No, Archie," said Hilda, "we have searched several times and can find nothing."

"But Archie knows it is there. Archie saw the woman put it in there one night when he was looking for people in the snow."

"Where is it, Archie?" asked Hilda, trying to conceal her eagerness, knowing it would confuse him.

"In that tall box," pointing to the desk.

"There is no money there, Archie," said Mrs. Merryman. "We have looked for it several times."

"Archie can find it; he saw the woman put it there. Archie was looking through a crack in the shutter. The woman didn't know Archie saw her,"

he added earnestly.

"Show us where it is, Archie," said Hilda; "take your own time."

He stepped to the desk, put up the lid, lowered it again, and stood contemplating it with a look of perplexity upon his worn face.

"Archie forgets. He must think," he said. He locked and unlocked the desk several times, the ladies sitting quietly by.

"Yes, Archie knows!" he cried exultantly. "The woman held the lid so, and put her hand under here," and suiting the action to the word, he drew forth a small flat package and gave it into the hand of Hilda. It was addressed to her. She opened it and found Mrs. Ashley's letter, the money, a letter from Jerusha Flint to her and the gold pen with its holder set with rubies.

Pale and silent, Hilda held them, her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears. It seemed almost as if her aunt had returned to hold converse with her, and that poor Jerusha was yet craving forgiveness, though "after life's fitful fever," she was at rest in the grave.

"Hilda," ran the letter, "I was cruel to you, and can never atone for that, but I give back all I kept from you. I did not intend to keep the pen, but forgot to send it with the trunks, and then, wishing to have no communication with you, put off sending it. I have used it twice, there being no other pen in the house. The first time was in writing my letter to Mrs. Merryman to keep you. You did not return, and I looked upon the pen as bringing me good luck. Diana told me that she used it in writing to Mrs. Warfield; you found a home with her, which I regarded as better luck, for it took you out of my sight. I directed an envelope to my brother Horace with it, enclosing three letters. One was my mother's letter to me, received on my sixteenth birthday. The other two I requested Horace to forward to our grandfather after I am gone, and I wish him joy in reading my mother's letter to him from Baltimore, and his reply. I also enclosed for Horace a slip cut from a London newspaper years and years ago, by my grandmother, which confirmed the record of our ancestry and heredity given in my mother's letter to me.

"That letter from my mother served to keep in remembrance my miserable childhood. Her pride of ancestry kept her from allowing me to a.s.sociate with the plebeian children of the neighbors, among whom our poverty-stricken homes were compelled to be, and to add to my half-starved, and in winter, half-frozen condition, I was shut up with her sighs and tears, her heart-sick waiting for forgiveness and help from her father which never came, and her unavailing regret for her disobedience to him and to her mother, which was the cause of all her troubles.

"My sleep was broken, my nerves wrecked; and I imagined and dreamed of all kinds of terrible calamities which we were powerless to escape. When my mother died, I was taken to an orphan asylum, which I hated from foundation to roof; and when old enough to earn my living was compelled to earn it by means of an occupation I despised.

"I mention these things as some little excuse for my warped disposition which made me so disagreeable to my fellow-creatures that I had not one real friend, and was so cruel to you that I wonder you lived. For that I implore your forgiveness.

_"Jerusha."_