Rosamond, or, the Youthful Error Part 6

"Go now, mother. Don't wait a minute," pleaded Ben, and Mrs. Van Vechten started for her brother's library.

She found him alone, and disclosed the object of her visit at once.

Rosamond had refused her son, who, in consequence, was nearly distracted, and threatened going to the Crimean war--a threat she knew he would execute unless her brother persuaded Rosamond to revoke her decision and think again.

Mr. Browning turned as white as marble, but his sister was too much absorbed in her own matters to heed his emotions, and she continued--

"Of course it will be mortifying to us all to have her in the family, and maybe Ben will get over it; but they must be engaged somehow, or he'll go away. I'll send her up to you immediately," and she hurriedly left the room in quest of Rosamond. For a moment Mr. Browning sat like one stupefied; then, covering his face with his hands, he moaned, "Must _this_ come upon me, too? Must I, who love her so madly, bid her marry another? And yet what does it matter? She can never be mine--and if she marries Ben I can keep them with me always, and that vile woman will have no cause for annoying me. She said Rosamond loved me, but I pray Heaven that may not be so."

A light tread echoed in the hall, and with each fall of those little feet, Ralph Browning's heart throbbed painfully. Another moment and Rosamond was there with him--her cheeks flushed--her eyelashes wet with tears, and her whole manner betrayed an unusual degree of excitement.

"I understand from your sister," said she, "that you wish me to marry _Ben,_ or leave your house. I will do the latter, but the former-- never! Shall I consider our interview at an end?"

She turned to leave the room, but Mr. Browning caught her dress, exclaiming: "Stay, Rosamond, and hear me. I never uttered such words to Mrs. Van Vechten. I do not wish you to marry Ben unless you love him. Do you love him, Rosamond? Do you love anybody?"

This was not what he intended to say--but he had said it, and now he waited for her answer. To the first question it came in a decided "No, I do not love him," and to the last it came in burning blushes, stealing over her cheek--her forehead--her neck, and speaking in her downcast eye. She had never believed that she did love her guardian, until told that he wished her to marry another, when it burst upon her in all its force, and she could no more conceal it now than she could stop the rapid beatings of her heart. He saw it all in her tell-tale face, and forgetting everything, he wound his arms around her, and drawing her to his side, whispered in her ear, "Darling, Rosamond, say that you love me. Let me hear that a.s.surance once, and I shall be almost willing to die."

"Ladies do not often confess an attachment until sure it is returned,"

was Rosamond's answer, and doubly forgetful now of all the dreary past, Ralph Browning poured into her ear hot, burning words of love-- hugging her closer and closer to him until through the open window came the sound of Mrs. Peters' voice calling to the stranger girl who had that morning entered service at Riverside as a waiting-maid in general. _Maria_ was the name, and as the ominous word fell upon Mr.

Browning's ear, he started, and pushing Rosamond from him, turned his face away so she could not see the expression of mute despair settling down upon it. Sinking upon the lounge he buried his face in its cushions while Rosamond looked curiously upon him, feeling sure that she knew what it was that so affected him. He had told her of his love--had said that she was dearer to him than his life, and in confessing this he had forgotten the dark shadow upon his life, and it was the dread of telling it to her--the pain of saying "I love you, but you cannot be my wife," which affected him so strangely. But she knew it all, and she longed to a.s.sure him of her sympathy. At last when he seemed to be more calm, she stole up to him, and kneeling at his side bent over him so that her bright hair mingled with his own.

"Mr. Browning," she whispered softly, "I _know your secret,_ and I do not love you less."

"_You, Rosamond, you know it!_" he exclaimed, gazing fixedly at her.

"It cannot be. You would never do as you have done."

"But I do know it," she continued, taking both his hands in hers, and looking him steadily in the eye, by way of controlling him, should he be seized with a sudden attack, "I know exactly what it is, and though it will prevent me from being your wife, it will not prevent me from loving you just the same, or from living with you either. I shall stay here always--and--and--pardon me, Mr. Browning, but when you get furious, as you sometimes do, I can quiet you better than any one else, and it may be, the world will never need to know you're a _madman!"_

Mr. Browning looked searchingly into her innocent eyes, and then, in spite of himself, he laughed aloud. He understood why she should think him a madman, and though he repented of it afterward, he hastened to undeceive her now. "As I hope to see another day, it is not that," he said. "It is far worse than insanity; and, Rosamond, though it breaks my heart to say it, it is wicked for me to talk of love to you, and you must not remember what I said. You must crush every tender thought of me. You must forget me--nay, more--you must _hate_ me. Will you, Rosamond?"

"No--no--no! she cried, and laying her face in his lap, she burst into a pa.s.sionate flood of tears.

"Leave me," he whispered, "or I _shall_ go mad, for I know I am the cause of this distress."

There was decision in the tones of his voice, and it stilled the tumult in Rosamond's bosom. Rising to her feet, she said calmly: "I will go, but I cannot forget that you deceived me. You have wrung from me a confession of my love, only to throw it back upon me as a priceless thing."

Not thus would he part with her, and grasping her arm, he began: "Heaven knows how much more than my very life I love you--"

He did not finish the sentence, for through the air a small, dark object came, and, missing its aim, dropped upon the hearth, where it was broken in a hundred pieces. It was a vase which stood upon the table in the hall, and Ben Van Vechten's was the hand that threw it!

Impatient at the delay, he had come up in time to hear his uncle's last words, which aroused his Southern blood at once, and seizing the vase, he hurled it at the offender's head--then, rushing down the stairs, he burst upon his mother with "Great thunder! mother; Uncle Ralph is making love to Rosamond himself, and she likes it too. I saw it with my own eyes! I'll hang myself in the barn, or go to the Crimean war!" and Ben bounded up and down like an India-rubber ball.

Suddenly remembering that another train was due ere long, he darted out of the house, followed by his distracted mother, who, divining his intention, ran swiftly after him, imploring him to return. Pausing for a moment as he struck into the highway, he called out, "Good-by, mother. I've only one choice left--WAR! Give my love to Rosamond, and tell her I shall die like a hero. You needn't wear black, if you don't want to. Good-by."

He turned the corner--he had started for the _war_--and mentally resolving to follow him in the next train, Mrs. Van Vechten returned to the house, and sought her brother.

"Ralph," she began, sternly, "have you talked of love to Rosamond?"

Mr. Browning had borne so much that nothing startled him now, and returning her glance unflinchingly, he replied, "I have."

"How, then--is Marie dead?" the lady asked.

"Not to my knowledge--but hist," was the reply, as Mr. Browning nodded toward the hall, where a rustling movement was heard.

It was the _new girl_, coming with a dust-pan and brush to remove the fragments of the vase, though how she knew they were there, was a question she alone could answer. For a single instant her dull, gray eye shot a gleam of intelligence at the occupants of the room, and then a.s.suming her usual appearance, she did what she came to do, and departed. When they were again alone, Mrs. Van Vechten demanded an explanation of her brother, who gave it unhesitatingly. Cold-hearted as she always seemed, Mrs. Van Vechten had some kind feelings left, and, touched by her brother's tale of suffering, she gave him no word of reproach, and even unbent herself to say that a brighter day might come to him yet. Then she spoke of Ben, announcing her determination of following him that night. To this plan Mr. Browning offered no remonstrance, and when the night express left the Granby station, it carried with it Mrs. Van Vechten, in pursuit of the runaway Ben.

CHAPTER VIII.

NEWS.

Nearly two weeks had pa.s.sed away since the exciting scene in Mr.

Browning's library, and during that time Rosamond had kept herself aloof from her guardian, meeting him only at the table, where she maintained toward him a perfectly respectful but rather freezing manner. She was deeply mortified to think he had won from her a confession of her love, and then told her how useless--nay, worse--how wicked it was for her to think of him. She knew that he suffered intensely, but she resolutely left him to suffer alone, and he would rather it should be so.

Life was growing more and more a wearisome burden, and when, just one week after the library interview, he received a note in the well- remembered handwriting, he asked that he might die and forget his grief. The letter was dated at the Springs, where Miss Porter was still staying, though she said she intended starting the next day for Cuyler, a little out-of-the-way place on the lake, where there was but little company, and she could be quiet and recruit her nervous system.

The latter had been terribly shocked, she said, by hearing of his recent attempt at making love to Rosamond Leyton! "Indeed," she wrote, "it is to this very love-making that you owe this letter from me, as I deem it my duty to keep continually before your mind the fact that _I_ am still alive."

With a blanched cheek Mr. Browning read this letter through--then tore it into fragments, wondering much who gave her the information. There were no _spies_ about his premises. Rosamond would not do it, and it must have been his sister, though why she should thus wish to annoy him he did not know, when she, more than any one else, had been instrumental in placing him where he was. Once he thought of telling Rosamond all, but he shrank from this, for she would leave his house, he knew, and, though she might never again speak kindly to him, he would rather feel that she was there.

And so another dreary week went by, and then one morning there came to him tidings which stopped for an instant the pulsations of his heart, and sent through his frame a thrill so benumbing and intense that at first pity and horror were the only emotions of which he seemed capable. It came to him in a newspaper paragraph, which in substance was as follows:

"A sad catastrophe occurred on Thursday afternoon at Cuyler, a little place upon the lake, which of late has been somewhat frequented during the summer months. Three ladies and one gentleman went out in a small pleasure-boat which is kept for the accommodation of the guests. They had not been gone very long when a sudden thunder-gust came on, accompanied by a violent wind, and the owner of the skiff, feeling some alarm for the safety of the party, went down to the landing just in time to see the boat make a few mad plunges with the waves, and then capsize at the distance of nearly half a mile from the sh.o.r.e.

"Every possible effort was made to save the unfortunate pleasure- seekers, but in vain; they disappeared from view long before a boat could reach them. One of the bodies has not yet been recovered. It is that of a Miss Porter, from Florida. She had reached Cuyler only the day previous, and was unaccompanied by a single friend, save a waiting-maid, who seems overwhelmed with grief at the loss of her mistress."

This, then, was the announcement which so affected Ralph Browning, blotting out for a moment the wretched past, and taking him back to the long ago when he first knew Marie Porter and fancied that he loved her. She was _dead_ now--_dead._ Many a time he whispered that word to himself, and with each repet.i.tion the wish grew strong within him--not that she were living, but that while living he had not hated her so bitterly, and with the softened feeling which death will always bring, he blamed himself far more than he did her. There had been wrong on both sides, but he would rather now, that she had been reconciled to him ere she found that watery grave. Hand in hand with these reflections came another thought; a bewildering, intoxicating thought.

He was _free_ at last--free to _love_--to _worship_--to _marry_ Rosamond.

"And I will go to her at once," he said, after the first hour had been given to the dead; "I will tell her all the truth."

He rose to leave the room, but something stayed him there, and whispered in his ear, "There may be some mistake. Cuyler is not far away. Go there first and investigate."

For him to will was to do, and telling Mrs. Peters he should be absent from home for a time, he started immediately for Cuyler, which he reached near the close of the day. Calm and beautiful looked the waters of the lake on that summer afternoon, and if within their caverns the ill-fated Marie slept, they kept over her an unruffled watch and told no tales of her last dying wail to the careworn, haggard man who stood upon the sandy beach, where they said that she embarked, and listened attentively while they told him how gay she seemed that day, and how jestingly she spoke of the dark thunderhead which even then was mounting the western horizon. They had tried in vain to find her, and it was probable she had sunk into one of the unfathomable holes with which the lake was said by some to abound.

Sarah, the waiting-maid, wept pa.s.sionately, showing that the deceased must have had some good qualities, or she could not thus have attached a servant to her.

Looking upon Mr. Browning as a friend of her late mistress, she relied on him for counsel, and when he advised her immediate return to Florida, she readily consented, and started on the same day that he turned his face toward Riverside. They had said to him: "If we find her, shall we send her to your place?" and with an involuntary shudder he had answered, "No--oh, no. You must apprise me of it by letter, as also her Florida friends--but bury her quietly here."

They promised compliance with his wishes, and feeling that a load was off his mind, he started at once for home. Certainty now was doubly sure. Marie was dead, and as this conviction became more and more fixed upon his mind, he began to experience a dread of telling Rosamond all. Why need she know of it, when the telling it would throw much censure on himself. She was not a great newspaper reader--she had not seen the paragraph, and would not see it. He could tell her that the obstacle to his happiness had been removed--that 'twas no longer a sin for him to think of her or seek to make her his wife. All this he would say to her, but nothing more.

And all this he did say to her in the summer-house at the foot of the garden, where he found her just as the sun was setting. And Rosamond listened eagerly--never questioning him of the past, or caring to hear of it. She was satisfied to know that she might love him now, and with his arm around her, she sat there alone with him until the August moon was high up in the heavens. He called her his "sunshine"--his "light"

--his "life," and pushing the silken curls from off her childish brow, kissed her again and again, telling her she should be his wife when the twentieth day of November came. That was his twenty-ninth birthday, and looking into her girlish face, he asked her if he were not too old. He knew she would tell him _no_, and she did, lovingly caressing his grayish hair.

"He had grown young since he sat there," she said, and so, indeed, he had, and the rejuvenating process continued day after day, until the villagers laughingly said that his approaching marriage had put him back ten years. It was known to all the town's folks now, and unlike most other matches, was p.r.o.nounced a suitable one. Even Mrs. Van Vechten, who had found Ben at Lovejoy's Hotel, and still remained with him in New York, wrote to her brother a kind of congratulatory letter, mingled with sickly sentimental regrets for the "heart-broken, deserted and now departed Marie." It was doubtful whether she came up to the wedding or not, she said, as Ben had positively refused to come, or to leave the city either, and kept her constantly on the watch lest he should elope with a second-rate actress at Laura Keene's theatre.

Rosamond laughed heartily when Mr. Browning told her of this sudden change in Ben, and then with a sigh as she thought how many times his soft, good-natured heart would probably be wrung, she went back to the preparations for her bridal, which were on a magnificent scale. They were going to Europe--they would spend the winter in Paris, and as Mr.

Browning had several influential acquaintances there, they would of course see some society, and he resolved that his bride should be inferior to none in point of dress, as she was to none in point of beauty. Everything which love could devise or money procure was purchased for her, and the elegance of her outfit was for a long time the only theme of village gossip.

Among the members of the household none seemed more interested in the preparations than the girl Maria, who has before been incidentally mentioned. Her dull eyes lighted up with each new article of dress, and she suddenly displayed so much taste in everything pertaining to a lady's toilet, that Rosamond was delighted and kept her constantly with her, devising this new thing and that, all of which were invariably tried on and submitted to the inspection of Mr. Browning, who was sure to approve whatever his Rosamond wore. And thus gayly sped the halcyon hours, bringing at last the fading leaf and the wailing October winds; but to Rosamond, basking in the sunlight of love, there came no warning note to tell her of the dark November days which were hurrying swiftly on.