Part 9 (1/2)
The two hundred thousand dollars produced a magical effect upon the old lady, exonerating George Douglas at once from all blame. But towards Henry Warner she was not thus lenient; for, coward-like, Theo charged him with having suggested everything, even to the cutting up of the ancestral red coat for Freedom's banner!
”What!” fairly screamed Madam Conway, who in her hasty glance at the flag had not observed the material; ”not taken my grandfather's coat for a banner!”
”Yes, he did,” said Theo, ”and Maggie cut up your blue satin bodice for stars, and took one of your fine linen sheets for the foundation.”
”The wretch!” exclaimed Madam Conway, stamping her foot in her wrath, and thinking only of Henry Warner; ”I'll turn him from my door instantly. My blue satin bodice, indeed!”
”'Twas I, grandma--'twas I,” interrupted Maggie, looking reproachfully at Theo. ”'Twas I who cut up the bodice. I who brought down the scarlet coat.”
”And I didn't do a thing but look on,” said Theo. ”I knew you'd be angry, and I tried to make Maggie behave, but she wouldn't.”
”I don't know as it is anything to you what Maggie does, and I think it would look quite as well in you to take part of the blame yourself, instead of putting it all upon your sister,” was Madam Conway's reply; and, feeling almost as deeply injured as Mrs. Jeffrey herself, Theo began to cry, while Maggie, with a few masterly strokes, succeeded in so far appeasing the anger of her grandmother that the good lady consented for the young gentlemen to stay to breakfast, saying, though, that ”they should decamp immediately after, and never darken her doors again.”
”But Mr. Douglas is rich,” sobbed Theo from behind her pocket handkerchief--”immensely rich, and of a very aristocratic family, I'm sure, else where did he get his money?”
This remark was timely, and when fifteen minutes later Madam Conway was presented to the gentlemen in the hall her manner was far more gracious towards George Douglas than it was towards Henry Warner, to whom she merely nodded, deigning no answer whatever to his polite apology for having made himself so much at home in her house. The expression of his mouth was as usual against him, and, fancying he intended adding insult to injury by laughing in her face, she coolly turned her back upon him ere he had finished speaking, and walked downstairs, leaving him to wind up his speech with ”an old she-dragon”!
By this time both the sun and the servants had arisen, the former s.h.i.+ning into the disorderly dining room, and disclosing to the latter the weary, jaded Anna, who, while Madam Conway was exploring the house, had thrown herself upon the lounge and had fallen asleep.
”Who is she, and where did she come from?” was anxiously inquired, and they were about going in quest of Margaret when their mistress appeared suddenly in their midst, and their noisy demonstrations of joyful surprise awoke the sleeping girl, who, rubbing her red eyelids, asked for her aunt, and why she did not come to meet her.
”She has been a little excited, and forgot you, perhaps,” answered Madam Conway, at the same time bidding one of the servants to show the young lady to Mrs. Jeffrey's room.
The good lady had recovered her composure somewhat, and was just wondering why her niece had not come with Madam Conway, as had been arranged, when Anna appeared, and in her delight at once more beholding a child of her only sister, and her husband's brother, she forgot in a measure how injured she had felt. Ere long the breakfast bell rang; but Anna declared herself too weary to go down, and as Mrs.
Jeffrey felt that she could not yet meet Madam Conway face to face, they both remained in their room, Anna again falling away to sleep, while her aunt, grown more calm, sought, and this time found, comfort in her favorite volume. Very cool, indeed, was that breakfast, partaken in almost unbroken silence below. The toast was cold, the steak was cold, the coffee was cold, and frosty as an icicle was the lady who sat where the merry Maggie had heretofore presided. Scarcely a word was spoken by anyone; but in the laughing eyes of Maggie there was a world of fun, to which the mischievous mouth of Henry Warner responded by a curl exceedingly annoying to his stately hostess, who, in pa.s.sing him his coffee, turned her head in another direction lest she should be too civil!
Breakfast being over, George Douglas, who began to understand Madam Conway tolerably well, asked of her a private interview, which was granted, when he conciliated her first by apologizing for anything ungentlemanly he might have done in her house, and startled her next by asking for Theo as his wife.
”You can,” said he, ”easily ascertain my character and standing in Worcester, where for the last ten years I have been known first as clerk, then as junior partner, and finally as proprietor of the large establishment which I now conduct.”
Madam Conway was at first too astonished to speak. Had it been Maggie for whom he asked, the matter would have been decided at once, for Maggie was her pet, her pride, the intended bride of Arthur Carrollton; but Theo was a different creature altogether, and though the Conway blood flowing in her veins ent.i.tled her to much consideration, she was neither showy nor brilliant, and if she could marry two hundred thousand dollars, even though it were American coin, she would perhaps be doing quite as well as could be expected. So Madam Conway replied at last that she would consider the matter, and if she found that Theo's feelings were fully enlisted she would perhaps return a favorable answer. ”I know the firm of Douglas & Co.
by reputation,” said she, ”and I know it to be a wealthy firm; but with me family is quite as important as money.”
”My family, madam, are certainly respectable,” interrupted George Douglas, a deep flush overspreading his face.
He was indignant at her presuming to question his respectability, Madam Conway thought, and so she hastened to appease him by saying: ”Certainly, I have no doubt of it. There are marks by which I can always tell.”
George Douglas bowed low to the far-seeing lady, while a train of thought, not altogether complimentary to her discernment in this case, pa.s.sed through his mind.
Not thus lenient would Madam Conway have been towards Henry Warner had he presumed to ask her that morning for Maggie, but he knew better than to broach the subject then. He would write her, he said, immediately after his return to Worcester, and in the meantime Maggie, if she saw proper, was to prepare her grandmother for it by herself announcing the engagement. This, and much more, he said to Maggie as they sat together in the library, so much absorbed in each other as not to observe the approach of Madam Conway, who entered the door just in time to see Henry Warner with his arm around Maggie's waist. She was a woman of bitter prejudices, and had conceived a violent dislike for Henry, not only on account of the ”Stars and Stripes,” but because she read to a certain extent the true state of affairs. Her suspicions were now confirmed, and rapidly crossing the floor she confronted him, saying, ”Let my granddaughter alone, young man, both now and forever.”
Something of Hagar's fiery spirit flashed from Maggie's dark eyes, but forcing down her anger she answered half earnestly, half playfully, ”I am nearly old enough, grandma, to decide that matter for myself.”
A fierce expression of scorn pa.s.sed over Madam Conway's face, and harsh words might have ensued had not the carriage at that moment been announced. Wringing Maggie's hand, Henry arose and left the room, followed by the indignant lady, who would willingly have suffered him to walk; but thinking two hundred thousand dollars quite too much money to go on foot, she had ordered her carriage, and both the senior and junior partner of Douglas & Co. Were ere long riding a second time away from the old house by the mill.
CHAPTER XII.
THE WATERS ARE TROUBLED.