Mabel's Mistake Part 14

Mabel turned away her face, that Lina might not see how it was convulsed. So the young girl went out from the boudoir, grieved to the verge of tears.

After they were gone, Mabel grew strong again and began to pace to and fro in the boudoir, as if striving to outstrip the pain of thinking. The accident had left her nerves greatly shattered, and it was difficult to concentrate the high moral courage that formed the glory of her woman's nature. Thus she walked to and fro in a sort of vague, dreamy pa.s.sion, her thoughts all in a tumult, her very soul up in arms against the new struggle forced upon her. Sometimes Mabel wrung her hand with a sudden gush of sorrow. Her eyes would fill and her lips quiver, and she looked around upon the sumptuous objects in her room, as if seeking out something among all the elegance that filled it, which might have power to comfort her.

There was no bitter or bad pa.s.sion in the heart of Mabel Harrington. She had only laid down her burden for a moment, and finding its weight doubled, shrank from taking it up again. But she had a brave, strong heart, that after a little would leap forward, like a checked racehorse to its duty. This might not have been, had she always relied upon her own strength, which so far as human power can go, was to be confided in.

But Mabel had a firmer and holier reliance, which was sure in the end to subdue all these storms of trouble, and prepare her for the battle which was to be fought over and over again before she found rest.

After a time, Mabel Harrington stole gently back to her easy-chair, and kneeling down, buried her face in the cushions. Fair-Star, which had been following her up and down, wondering at her distress, and looking in that agitated face with his intelligent eyes, came and lay softly down with his head resting on the folds of her shawl, where it swept over the floor. He knew with his gentle instinct, that she was quieter now, and with a contented whine lay down to guard her as she prayed.

While she was upon her knees, a rustling among the flowers in the balcony made Fair-Star rise suddenly to his fore feet, and cast a vigilant glance that way. He saw a hand cautiously outstretched, as if to put back the trails of a pa.s.sion flower, and then a dark figure stole along behind the screen of blossoms, and crouching down, peered cautiously through the leaves into the room. Fair-Star dropped his head; he had recognized the intruder, and, not having any very definite ideas of etiquette, concluded that the governess had a right to crouch like a thief behind that screen of flowers, if her fancy led that way. For a little time her presence kept the pretty hound restless, but it was not long before Agnes had so draped the pa.s.sion-flower that it entirely concealed her person, and then Fair-Star betook himself entirely to his mistress. A soul-struggle does not always break forth in words, or exhaust itself in cries. The heart has a still small voice, which G.o.d recognizes the more readily, because it is like his own.

Mabel came with no rush of stormy pa.s.sion before the Lord. The very force of her anguish was laid aside as she bowed her proud head, and meekly besought strength to suffer and be still--to struggle for the right. Now and then her clasped hands were uplifted, once the spy on the balcony caught a glimpse of her face. It was luminous and lovely, spite of the anguish to be read there.

At last she arose, and seating herself, remained for some time in thoughtful silence, her arms folded on her bosom, her eyes full of troubled light, looking afar off, as if she were following with her eyes the angels that had been gathering over her as she knelt.

After awhile, Mabel arose, and walking across the room more composedly, unlocked a little escritoir of ebony, from which she drew forth a book bound in white vellum, and embossed with gold. Seating herself at the escritoir, she began to search among the trinkets attached to her chatelaine for a small key, which she inserted in a little heart beset with rubies, which locked the golden clasps of the book.

All this time Agnes Barker was watching each movement of her benefactress with the eyes of a serpent. She saw the tiny heart fly open, and the ma.n.u.script pages of the book exposed. She saw Mrs.

Harrington turn these pages, now slowly, now hurriedly--reading a line here, a sentence there, and more than once two or three pages together.

Sometimes her fine eyes were full of tears. Sometimes they were reverently uplifted to Heaven, as if seeking strength or comfort there; but more frequently she pursued those pages with a sad thoughtfulness, full of dignity.

After she had been reading, perhaps an hour, she dipped a pen into the standish on her escritoir, and began to write slowly, as if weighing every word as it dropped from her pen. Then she closed the book, locked it carefully, and securing it in the escritoir again, walked slowly toward her bed-chamber, which opened from the boudoir, evidently worn out and ready to drop down with exhaustion. A slight disturbance in the pa.s.sion-vine betrayed that Agnes Barker had changed her position, and now commanded a view through the open door of Mabel's chamber. She saw the poor lady move wearily toward a bed, which stood like a snowdrift in the midst of the room, and pulling the cloud of white lace, which enveloped it aside, with her trembling hands, fell wearily down upon the pillows, and dropped away into tranquil slumber, like a child that had played itself to sleep in a daisy field.

Mabel had asked for strength, and G.o.d gave her its first tranquilizing element--rest.

Agnes stood motionless till the lace curtains above the sleeper closed again, leaving nothing visible upon the snowy white beneath but the calm, sleeping face of Mabel Harrington, gleaming as it were through a cloud, and the folds of her azure shawl, that lay around her like fragments of the blue sky. Mrs. Harrington had evidently sunk into a heavy slumber, but Agnes kept her concealment some time after this, for Fair-Star was still vigilant, and she shrunk from his glances as if they had been human.

But the dog crept into his mistress's chamber at last, and then Agnes Barker stole from her fragrant hiding-place, and entered the boudoir again.

The escritoir was closed, but Agnes saw with joy that the key still remained in its lock, and that Mrs. Harrington had left her watch upon a marble console close by. Stealing across the room, and holding her wicked breath, as if she felt that it would poison the air of that tranquil room, she crept to the escritoir, turned the key, and stealthily drawing forth the vellum book, dropped on one knee, while she reached forth her hand, drawing the watch softly to her lap.

There was a quiver in her hands as she unlocked that little golden heart, forcing it asunder with a jerk, for the dog came back just then, and stood regarding her with his clear, honest eyes. She strove to evade him, and gleams of angry shame stole across her cheeks as she laid down the watch, and stole, like the thief that she was, through the sash door, along the pretty labyrinth of flowers, and into another door that opened upon one end of the balcony.

And Mabel slept on, while this ruthless girl was tearing the secret from her life.

CHAPTER XIV.

RALPH'S LOVE CHASE.

It was an uncomfortable breakfast-table to which the Harringtons sat down that morning. The lady of the house and Lina, its morning-star, were both absent, and the servant, who stood at the coffee-urn ready to distribute its contents, was a most unsatisfactory subst.i.tute.

Their absence left a gloom on everything. The very morning seemed darkened by the want of their smiling faces and cheerful garments. A breakfast-table at which no lady presides, is always a desert--and so was this; spite of its glittering silver, its transparent china, and the warm October sunshine, which penetrated the broad eastern window with a thousand cheerful flashes, scarcely broken by the gorgeous tree boughs, or the climbing vines that waved and cl.u.s.tered around it.

Gen. Harrington was out of sorts, as your polished man of the world sometimes proves when his circle of admirers is a household one. The absence of his wife was an annoyance which, under the circ.u.mstances, he could not well resent, but that Lina should have been so indolent, or so forgetful, he considered a just cause of complaint. Thus in that smooth, ironical way, which usually expressed the General's anger, he began a series of complaints, that in another might have been considered grumbling, but in a man of Gen. Harrington's perfect breeding, could have been only an expression of elegant displeasure.

Ralph, radiant with his new-born happiness, and full of generous enthusiasm, strove to dissipate this gloom by extra cheerfulness; but this only irritated the grand old gentleman, who stirred the cream in his coffee, and b.u.t.tered his delicate French rolls in dignified silence, into which his displeasure had at last subsided.

James Harrington, unlike his irritable father, or the bright animation of his brother, was so rapt in heavy thought, that he seemed unmindful of all that was going on. He had cast one quick, almost wild glance at the head of the table as he entered, and after that took his seat like one in a dream.

"Let me," said Ralph, taking the second cup from the servant, and carrying it to the General, "let me help you, father."

"My boy," said the General, "when will you learn to comprehend the refined taste which I fear you will never emulate? You ought to know, sir, that a breakfast without a lady is an unnatural thing in society, calculated to disturb the composure and injure the digestion of any gentleman. As Mrs. Harrington is not able to preside, will you have the goodness to inform Miss Lina that her seat is empty?"

"I--I don't know where Lina is, father. Indeed, I have been searching and searching for her all the morning," answered the youth with a vivid blush.

"Go knock at her door. She may be ill," answered the General, "and, in the meantime, inquire after Mrs. Harrington, with my compliments."

Ralph grew crimson to the temples. A hundred times before, he had summoned Lina from her slumbers, but now it seemed like presumption.

It was strange, but James Harrington had not inquired after either of the ladies; but he looked up with an eager flash of the eyes when the General gave his message; and, as Ralph hesitated, he said in a grave voice--

"What are you waiting for, Ralph? There is something strange in Lina's absence."

"Is there? Do you think so?" exclaimed the excitable boy, and the crimson came and went in flashes over his face. "Oh, brother James, do you think so?"

The General lowered his cup to the table, and began tinkling the spoon against its side, softly, but in a way which bespoke a world of impatience. Ralph understood the signal, and disappeared.

"Upon my word, I'd rather be shot," thought Ralph, pausing before the door he had knocked at heedlessly a thousand times during his boyish life; "I wonder what she'll think of it, so coa.r.s.e and rude to present myself in this fashion after her first sweet sleep. Dear, dear Lina."

He reached forth his hand timidly, and with a pleasant tremble in all the nerves, drew it back, attempted again, and ended with one of the faintest possible taps against the black walnut panelling.

No answer came. The knock was repeated, louder and louder, still no answer. But at last the door was suddenly opened, and while Ralph stood in breathless expectation, he saw a mulatto chambermaid before him, beating a pillow with one hand, from which two or three feathers had broken loose, and stood quivering in her braided wool.

"Oh, it's you, is it, Master Ralph? Thought, mebbe, it was Miss Lina a-coming back agin. Everything sixes and sevens, I can tell you, since Miss Mabel took sick--now I tell you."

"Can you tell me where Miss Lina is?"

"Don't know nothin' 'bout her, no how--c.u.m in here a little while ago, and didn't speak a word when I said 'Good mornin',' as pleasant as could be--but jist turned her head away and went off, as if I'd been the dirt under her feet."

With these words the exasperated damsel punched her right hand ferociously into the pillow, as if that had been in fault, and added half a dozen more feathers to those already encamped in her dingy tresses.

Ralph was troubled. What could this mean? Lina was never ill-tempered.

Something must have grieved her.

"Tell me," he said, addressing the indignant girl, "was anything the matter? Did my--did Miss Lina look ill?"

"Just as blooming as a rose, de fust time I see her, and as white as this pillar when she went out, after I'd expressed myself regarding the rid.i.c.kelousness of her stuck up ways."

"But where is she now?"

"Don't know. Shouldn't wonder if she's wid de madam--like as not."

Ralph went to his mother's boudoir, and after knocking in vain, softly opened the door. Fair-Star came towards him with his serious eyes and velvet tread, looking back toward the inner room, where Ralph saw his mother through the lace curtains, asleep and alone. He saw also the shrubs in motion at the window, and fancied that a rustling sound came from the balcony.

"Hist, Lina--sweet Lina, it is I!"