Medoline Selwyn's Work Part 16

I was standing beside him. In my excitement, when awakening, I had started to my feet, but with difficulty maintained my position; for my head was dizzy with the sudden start from sound sleep, together with the unaccustomed hour for traveling. Glancing at my watch, I saw that it was past midnight. I think Mr. Winthrop noticed my weariness, for he said, rather grimly:

"It is too bad, having you out late two nights in succession."

I remembered his gift for Mr. Bowen, and was silent.

"At the next station we will be able to change cars for New York. The conductor tells me we shall only be compelled to wait a short time."

"I will rest then until we get there," I said, no doubt very wearily, for I felt not only dizzy, but slightly faint, and sank into my chair. He looked down at me, and then said, in more gentle fashion than he had ever before addressed me:

"I am very sorry, Medoline, to have caused you so much needless fatigue."

I quite forgot my weariness then. It was so comforting to know he could acknowledge regret for anything, and that his heart was not made of flint, as, unconfessed to myself, I had partly imagined.

I looked up brightly. "I do not know if I am not rather glad than sorry that we have shown ourselves such forgetful travelers. It will be something unusual to remember."

"That is a very kindly way to look on my forgetfulness--rather, I should say, stupidity." He sat down then, and the short remaining distance we pa.s.sed in silence.

We were both very prompt in responding to the summons given by the conductor when our station was reached. The waiting-room was well lighted and warmed, and a welcome odor of food pervaded the air. I resolved to make a little foray on my own account, to secure, if possible, a bit of luncheon; but, after seeing me comfortably seated by a hot stove, Mr.

Winthrop left, only to return in a few moments with the welcome announcement that refreshments were awaiting us. I expressed my surprise that food should be in readiness at that unseasonable hour.

"Oh, I telegraphed an hour ago to have it prepared," he replied.

"Then I was sleeping a good while," I said, ruefully.

"An hour or two. I only wakened you in time to collect yourself for changing cars."

"And you have not slept at all?"

"Scarcely. I do not permit myself that luxury in public."

I was silenced, but not so far crushed as to lose my appet.i.te. A cup of tea, such as Mrs. Flaxman never brewed for me, effectually banished sleep for the rest of the night. The journey back was tiresome, the car crowded, and the long night seemed interminable. I was wedged in beside a stout old gentleman, whose breath was disagreeably suggestive of stale brandy, while a wheezy cough disturbed him as well as myself. He looked well to do, and was inclined to be friendly; but his eyes had a peculiar expression that repelled me. Mr. Winthrop had got a seat some distance behind me. By twisting my neck uncomfortably, I could get a rea.s.suring glimpse of his broad shoulders and handsome face. At last he came to me. I half rose, for my aged companion was making me nervous with his anxiety for my comfort.

"We will go into the next car; it may not be so crowded," he said, taking my satchel. Fortunately we found a vacant seat; and I began to feel very safe and content with him again at my side.

"I do not think your late traveling companion could have been a widower, or you would not have been so eager to get away. The look of appeal on your face, when I got an occasional glimpse of it, was enough to melt one's heart."

I laughed in spite of myself. "It never occurred to me to ask, but he certainly is not a woman hater," I said, with a flush, as I mentally recalled some of his gracious remarks. I made my replies in brief and stately dignity; or at least as much of the latter as I could command, but he was not easily repulsed. Feeling so secure and sheltered now, my thoughts went out to the unprotected of my s.e.x cast among the evil and heartless, to fight their way purely amid bleakness and sin. I shuddered unconsciously. Mr. Winthrop turned to me.

"Are you cold?" he asked.

"Oh, no, I was only thinking," I stammered.

"I would cease thinking if the thoughts were so blood-curdling. May I ask what they were?"

"I was pitying poor girls who have to make their way alone in this wicked world."

He was silent for some time, and then said gravely: "Your instincts are very keen. That gray-haired gentleman happens to be a person I know something about, and his very presence is enough to contaminate."

I was amazed that he so easily understood my meaning. The sun was reddening the sky, which seemed so pure and still compared with the sinful, noisy city that, for an instant, a homesick longing seized me to escape to its clear, beautiful depths. When we reached the hotel I was cold, and feeling very cheerless; but a comfortable looking maid, not half so overwhelming as our Esmerelda, conducted me to a pleasant room, and soon had a bright fire burning, and a cozy breakfast spread on a little table just in front of the grate. I was not hungry, but I took the cup of hot chocolate Mr. Winthrop had ordered, and nibbled a bit of toast; and then, drawing an easy-chair in front of the fire, soon fell into a luxurious sleep, from which I did not waken for several hours. The maid came in occasionally to replenish the fire, but her light movements did not disturb me. Afterward I found the hotel was not a public one, but a private affair, patronized mainly by a number of old families whose parents and children had come and gone for nearly half a century. The room I occupied, Mrs. Flaxman told me, was the very one my own dear mother had occupied as a bride; and hence Mr. Winthrop had secured it for me. It was the best in the house, I found later on. That evening, after I had wakened refreshed, and eager to see and hear all that was possible in this new wonderland, Mrs. Flaxman, still a little nervous after her journey and anxiety on my account, came and sat with me; and to atone for keeping me in the house, told me stories of that beautiful, far-away time when she had seen my mother in that same room in the first joy of wifehood, and described my father as the proud, happy bridegroom, gazing with more than a lover's fondness on the beautiful girl who had left all for him, and yet in the renunciation had found no sacrifice. She described the rich silken gown with its rare, old lace, and the diamonds she wore at her first party in New York. "Mr. Winthrop has them, your mother's diamonds and all her jewelry. In being an only child like yourself, she inherited all her own mother's. They are all safely stored at his bankers, and I think he means to give them to you soon, or at least a part of them."

"I did not know I had any except what I brought with me from school," I said, with a shade of regret to be so long in ignorance of such a pleasant fact. Mrs. Flaxman smiled as she asked:

"Did you never hear your schoolmates talk of the family plate and jewelry?"

"Oh, yes; there were a few stupid ones who had very little brains to be proud of; so they used to try and make up for the lack by telling us about such things; but we reckoned a good essay writer worth a good deal more than these plate owners."

"There must have been great changes since I was at school. I believe the rising generation is developing a n.o.bler ambition than their predecessors possessed."

"I should hope so," I said, with girlish scorn; "as if such mere accidents as birth and the ownership of plate and jewelry could give one higher rank than intellect. Why, I believe that is the scarcest thing in all the universe."

"It does seem ridiculous," Mrs. Flaxman said reflectively, "but it is hard escaping from the spirit of the age in which we live. It would be easy to hold such things lightly in those heroic days in Greece when Lycurgus cheapened the gold and things the ma.s.ses held most precious."

"One can have a little republic in their own soul as well as Lycurgus, and indulge unforced in high thinking. I think that would be really more creditable than if every one agreed to do so by act of senate."

"It would be a grand thing for every one to get the dross all burned away from their nature and only have the pure gold left."

"Don't you think, Mrs. Flaxman, with a good many people, after the burning process, there would be so little left it would take a whole flock of them to make a decent sized individual?"

She laughed softly. "I never thought of it in that way. I am afraid now I will get to undressing my acquaintances, to try and find out how much that will be fit to take into higher existences they have in their composition."

"Mr. Winthrop is a very uncomfortable sort of person to live with, but I think he will have more n.o.ble qualities to carry somewhere after death than the average of my acquaintances. What a pity it is for such splendid powers of mind to be lost! He has the materials in him to make a grand angel."

Mrs. Flaxman looked up quickly.

"You cannot think it is his ultimate destiny to be lost?" she questioned.

"He doesn't believe in the Bible. What hope can he have that we will ever get to heaven?"

"A mult.i.tude of prayers are piled between him and perdition. His mother was a saintly character, whose dying breath was a prayer for him; and there are others who have taken his case daily to the mercy seat for years."

"I wish I had some one to pray for me," I said rather fretfully.

"My dear, I do not know any one who has more leisure to pray for themselves than you have."

I was surprised to hear her speak so lightly on such a solemn subject; but as I thought the matter over afterward, I could but acknowledge that she had answered me just as I deserved.

CHAPTER XII.

NEW ACQUAINTANCES.

Mrs. Flaxman's fears were realized. She was detained from her pickles and preserves for over a fortnight; but the days spent then in the city were an entirely new revelation of life to me. Mr. Winthrop had a circle of literary friends, who seemed determined to make his stay so pleasant that he would not be in a hurry to return to the solitude of Oaklands.

When I saw his keen enjoyment of their society, and the many varied privileges he had in that brief period--musical, artistic, and literary, I was filled with surprise that he should make his home at Oaklands at all, and expressed my wonder to Mrs. Flaxman.

"Oh, he often goes away--sometimes to Europe, and sometimes to the great American centres of thought and life; then he comes home apparently glad of its quiet and freedom from interruption. I think he uses up all the raw experiences and ideas he gets when away."