Mabel's Mistake Part 21

"I beg pardon," she said, "for intruding, but Mr. Harrington told me that Lina was in here, and I hurried to join her, fearing that my walk after breakfast had encroached on the hour for lessons."

"Miss Lina has just left me," answered Mrs. Harrington, coldly, but with a quiver of the voice, "you will find her with my son somewhere about the grounds, I fancy."

Agnes looked out of the window, casting sharp glances over that portion of the grounds which it commanded.

"Oh," she said, "yes, it is a heavenly day--what a pity that you cannot go out," and, with a little haste in her manner, Agnes left the room.

Mabel looked out of the window, in time to catch a glimpse of James Harrington walking slowly and thoughtfully towards the sh.o.r.e. Directly Agnes Barker joined him, and they seemed to enter into conversation, but moved on, and were soon out of sight.

He was not ill then, but avoided her purposely, and took long strolls with that strange girl. More and worse--no other hand could have arranged those rose buds. Years and years ago, she had worn such buds and leaves, tint for tint, upon her own bosom. Alas, that the memory gave her so much anguish.

CHAPTER XXI.

BEN BENSON GIVES AN OPINION.

Mabel went back into the room sick and faint; her heart was enveloped in shadows again.

Another knock at the door, a rambling timid knock, as if every knuckle of a great hand lent its own sound to the wood. Mabel was impatient and cried out, "come in, come in."

The door half opened and closed, opened again, and a huge foot was planted on a cl.u.s.ter of roses in the carpet. Another foot appeared, and our old friend Ben presented himself with a small basket on his arm, and a huge bouquet of wild flowers in hand.

"I beg pardon, marm," said the honest fellow, taking off his tarpaulin and setting it down by the door, "I begs any amount of pardons for this here intrusion, but I thought that you'd like to see these ere shiners afore the cook spiled their beauty on the gridiron; besides I found some blue asters and a tuft of golden-rod in a holler of the woods that the frost hasn't found out yet, and tied 'em up ship shape, thinking as you might like the smell on 'em, now that they've got so scarce."

The quick tears sprung into Mabel Harrington's eyes. She held out her hand with that beaming expression of face which rendered her at times more than beautiful.

"Ben, my good old friend, you helped to save my life; how can I ever thank you enough!"

Ben took the white hand in his huge grasp tenderly as if it had been a newly-fledged dove. "Don't, don't, now, I can't stand it, that ere look knocks the pins from under me, circ.u.mvents me into a lubberly boy again.

What was Ben Benson--the old scoundrel about, that he didn't do the hull thing hisself? Don't hurt the poor feller's feelins by thanking him for what he didn't do--he's ashamed of hisself, and hain't done nothing but rip and tear at hisself for a sneak and coward ever since."

"Oh, Benson, don't abuse yourself in this manner--I cannot speak all my thankfulness--I can never do enough for you. Sometimes, Ben, sometimes, I think you are the best, almost the only true friend that I have on earth--that is among the old friends, Ben."

Her eyes were full of tears. She pressed Ben's hard hand with her white fingers.

"He'd die for you--that ere old weather-beaten chap--he'd die for you any minute, and never ask the reason; but don't talk to him in that ere way--it'll break his heart if you do. His eyes have sprung aleak already, and no pump rigged, nothing to help hisself with, but the cuff of his coat!"

"Well, well, I will not vex you with my thanks; but remember, good friend, I must always feel them. Now tell me what you have got in the basket. Something nice or beautiful, I daresay, for you bring the breath of the hills in your very clothes."

Ben sat down his basket, with a glow of satisfaction, and proceeded to display its contents: first, he removed a layer of crimson maple leaves, presenting a surface of bright golden tints underneath, which were daintily lifted from a bed of the softest and greenest moss in which a pair of superb speckled trout lay softly embedded. Ben looked up with a broad smile, as Mabel touched their spotted sides, gleaming up through the delicate green, as if the gorgeous coloring of the leaves which lay heaped upon the marble console had struck through, leaving prismatic stains behind.

"I thought," said Ben, peering affectionately down into the basket, "that a pair of these ere beauties might tempt you into eating something. I've been a watching 'em a good while in the holler of the rocks, just above where Miss Barker's mammy lives. The brook that comes down by the side of her house is as pure as ice, and almost as cold, and that's the kind of water for fellers like this. Ain't they smashers, now? More'n a foot long, both on 'em, and sparkling like a lady's bracelet."

"Thank you, thank you. They will be delicious. I have tasted no breakfast yet. Tell the cook to prepare one for me."

"Will you have the goodness to trust that ere to Ben Benson, marm, and he'll see that there's no mistake this time. That same awkward chap brought a pair of shiners just like these, from the brook last night, and instid of gitting in here, as he expected they would, what does he see but that ar' gov'rness a-carrying them up in a silver platter to General Harrington's room, as if he'd been sick, and not the lady. If you've no objection, marm, Ben Benson 'll sarve these ere fellows hisself, for the brook hasn't got another of the same sort, if he beat brush for 'em a week."

"You are always kind," answered Mabel, "and it won't be the first time you have turned cook in my behalf. Do you remember, Ben, doing like services for me in Spain, years ago, when you insisted on leaving the ship, and turning courier for us all?"

"Don't I, now?" said Ben, and his face brightened all over. "Didn't Ben Benson? He was a smartish youngster then. Didn't he use to scour their skillets and sasepans, to git the garlic out on 'em? But it wasn't of no use, that ere garlic strikes through and through even hard iron in them countries, and a'most everything you touch tastes on it, but the hard biled eggs that had tough sh.e.l.ls to 'em, as I used to bile for you and the poor sick lady--they stood out agin it."

Mabel was looking sadly downward, and a troubled shadow came to her face as she murmured--

"Poor lady--poor lady! How she suffered, and yet how completely her disease baffled the Spanish physicians! That was a hard death."

Ben drew close to his mistress as she spoke. A strange meaning was in his glance, as he said, impressively--

"Lady, that was a strange death. I've seen consumption enough, but it wasn't what ailed _her_!"

Mabel lifted her eyes and looked anxiously at the honest face bent toward her. "How can you think so, Benson?" she said.

"Because I know who gave that lady her medicine o'nights, when you and the rest on 'em were in bed, and fast asleep; and I know that one time, at any rate, it wasn't of the same color or taste as that the doctor left, and she give it ten times when he told her once. I didn't think much about it at the time, but since then, it's constantly a-coming into my head."

Mabel turned deathly pale, and, yielding to a sudden faintness, sat down.

"You do not think--you cannot think that there was really any neglect?"

"I didn't say nothing about neglect, marm--there wasn't much of that, any how, for the poor lady never had a minute to herself. That ere cream-colored gal was always a-hanging over her like a pison vine, and the more she tended her, the sicker she grew--anybody with an eye to the windward, could see that without a gla.s.s."

"Benson, you surprise--you pain me!" cried Mabel, with sudden energy.

"Great Heavens, what could have put this wild idea into your head?"

"It was in my head years ago, and went to sleep there," answered Ben impressively--"but the sight of just sich a face, and just sich a cretur, all but the color, prowling about this ere very house--in and out like a mouser--has woke up the idee agin, and my own mother couldn't sing it to sleep, if she rose from the dead with the old lol-lo-by on her lips. I wish something could drive it away, for it's all the time a sighing in my ear, like the sound of waves when they close over a corpse."

"It is a terrible thought," said Mabel, shuddering.

"Now, don't go to turning pale nor nothing," said Ben, with prompt anxiety, "don't take it to heart, no how--just as like as not, it's one of old Ben Benson's sea-sarpents, that'll float off the minute it's touched, and if it does amount to any thing, ain't that individual here with his face to the wind, and his hand on the helm? Only do be careful what you eat and drink here alone, if that ere gov'rness is turning waiter for you or the general. There's a reason for it--be sartain of that."

"How foolish all this is," said Mabel, striving to laugh.

"One would think, Benson, that we lived in Italy, when the Borgias made poison an amus.e.m.e.nt, instead of being quiet people in the quietest land on earth!"

"The quietest country on earth," answered Ben, reflecting over her words with a hand buried amid the jack-knives, bits of twine, and lumps of lead, in his deepest of deep pockets. "That ere sentiment used to sound beautiful on a Fourth of July, when I was a shaver, but it's took after my example, and out-grown itself a long shot. Why, marm, there ain't ere a day but what some poor woman goes through a post mitimus, and two or three men are found with their skulls driv in by sling shot down in the city, to say nothing of them that never git under the crouner's hands, but are put away with a doctor's pa.s.s, into the grave that somebody should be hanged for filling. I can't go out a-fishing on the Hudson now, marm, without a feeling that some gang of rowdies may set upon me and steal my boat. I can't go into the city with a sartinty that a bowie knife won't be buried in my side, before I get home. In short, marm, I don't believe in calling countries quiet where murders and amus.e.m.e.nts go hand in hand. America was a peaceable country once, but it ain't that thing no longer. Them ere Borgers, as I've hearn, did their murders softly and arter dark, and it won't be long afore we learn to do the thing genteelly, as they did. I tell you, marm, I don't like strangers a-running about this house while you and Miss Lina live in it. Ain't the old sarvants enough--What have they done to be turned out of doors?"

"Who has been turned out of doors, Benson? No one by me," said Mabel, a good deal surprised by this harangue.

"No, marm--but they're dropping out of their places softly marm, as the leaves fall out yonder, without the least idee what wind strikes 'em.

Yesterday, the old cook, as has been in your kitchen twenty years, got her discharge. To-morrow, for anything that old feller knows, Ben Benson may git his mitimus, and when he asks to see the lady as he's sarved heart and soul since he was a boy a'most, they'll tell him as they did the cook--that this ere lady is sick, and can't be troubled with such matters."

"And have they discharged my cook--poor, faithful Nancy? Is this so, Benson? Who has done it? How dare they!" cried Mabel, surprised and indignant. "Why did she not come to me? Has Nancy really gone?"

"Yes, marm, I saw her myself go off to the city, with a bandbox under her arm, and a man behind, carrying her trunk."

"But what was her offence?"

"She didn't keep the General's woodc.o.c.ks quite long enough to make 'em tender--sarved 'em up too fresh and sweet--I don't know of nothing else that they brought agin her."