Part 16 (2/2)
But to this Madam Conway would not consent. She wished the test to be perfect, she said, and unless he accepted her terms he must give Maggie up, at once and forever.
As there seemed no alternative, Henry rather ungraciously yielded the point, promising to leave Maggie free for a year, while she too promised not to write either to him or to Rose, except with her grandmother's consent. Maggie Miller's word once pa.s.sed, Madam Conway knew it would not be broken, and she unhesitatingly left the young people together while they said their parting words. A message of love from Maggie to Rose--a hundred protestations of eternal fidelity, and then they parted; Henry, sad and disappointed, slowly wending his way back to the spot where Hagar impatiently awaited his coming, while Maggie, leaning from her chamber window, and listening to the sound of his retreating footsteps, brushed away a tear, wondering the while why it was that she felt so relieved.
CHAPTER XVI
PERPLEXITY
Half in sorrow, half in joy, old Hagar listened to the story which Henry told her, standing at her cottage door. In sorrow because she had learned to like the young man, learned to think of him as Maggie's husband, who would not wholly cast her oil, if her secret should chance to be divulged; and in joy because her idol would be with her yet a little longer.
”Maggie will be faithful quite as long as you,” she said, when he expressed his fears of her forgetfulness; and, trying to console himself with this a.s.surance, he sprang into the carriage in which he had come, and was driven rapidly away.
He was too late for the night express, but taking the early morning train he reached New York just as the sun was setting.
”Alone! my brother, alone?” queried Rose, as he entered the private parlor of the hotel where she was staying with her aunt.
”Yes, alone; just as I expected,” he answered somewhat bitterly.
Then very briefly he related to her the particulars of his adventure, to which she listened eagerly, one moment chiding herself for the faint, shadowy hope which whispered that possibly Maggie Miller would never be his wife, and again sympathizing in his disappointment.
”A year will not be very long,” she said, ”and in the new scenes to which you are going it will pa.s.s rapidly away;” and then, in her childlike, guileless manner, she drew a glowing picture of the future, when, her own health restored, they would return to their old home in Leominster, where, after a few months more, he would bring to them his bride.
”You are my comforting angel, Rose,” he said, folding her lovingly in his arms and kissing her smooth white cheek. ”With such a treasure as you for a sister, I ought not to repine, even though Maggie Miller should never be mine.”
The words were lightly spoken, and by him soon forgotten, but Rose remembered them long, dwelling upon them in the wearisome nights, when in her narrow berth she listened to the swelling sea as it dashed against the vessel's side. Many a fond remembrance, too, she gave to Maggie Miller, who, in her woodland home, thought often of the travelers on the sea, never wis.h.i.+ng that she was with them; but experiencing always a feeling of pleasure in knowing that she was Maggie Miller yet, and should be until next year's autumn leaves were falling.
Of Arthur Carrollton she thought frequently, wis.h.i.+ng she had not been so rude that morning in the woods, and feeling vexed because in his letters to her grandmother he merely said, ”Remember me to Margaret.”
”I wish he would write something besides that,” she thought, ”for I remember him now altogether too much for my own good;” and then she wondered what he would have said that morning, if she had not been so cross.
Very little was said to her of him by Madam Conway, who, having learned that he was not going to England, and would ere long return to them, concluded for a time to let the matter rest, particularly as she knew how much Maggie was already interested in one whom she had resolved to hate. Feeling thus confident that all would yet end well, Madam Conway was in unusually good spirits save when thoughts of Mrs.
Douglas, senior, obtruded themselves upon her. Then, indeed, in a most unenviable state of mind, she repined at the disgrace which Theo had brought upon them, and charged Maggie repeatedly to keep it a secret from Mrs. Jeffrey and Anna, the first of whom made many inquiries concerning the family, which she supposed of course was very aristocratic.
One day towards the last of November there came to Madam Conway a letter from Mrs. Douglas, senior, wonderful alike in composition and appearance. Directed wrong side up, sealed with a wafer, and stamped with a thimble, it bore an unmistakable resemblance to its writer, who expressed many regrets that she had not known ”in the time on't” who her ill.u.s.trious visitors were.
”If I had known [she wrote] I should have sot the table in the parlor certing, for though I'm plain and homespun I know as well as the next one what good manners is, and do my endeavors to practice it. But do tell a body [she continued] where you was muster day in Wooster. I knocked and pounded enough to raise the dead, and n.o.body answered. I never noticed you was deaf when you was here, though Betsy Jane thinks she did. If you be, I'll send you up a receipt for a kind of intment which Miss Sam Babbit invented, and which cures everything.
”Theodoshy has been to see us, and though in my way of thinkin' she aint as handsome as Margaret, she looks as well as the ginerality of women. I liked her, too, and as soon as the men's winter clothes is off my hands I calkerlate to have a quiltin', and finish up another bed quilt to send her, for, man-like, George has furnished up his rooms with all sorts of nicknacks, and got only two blankets, and two Marsales spreads for his bed. So I've sent 'em down the herrin'-bone and risin'-sun quilts for everyday wear, as I don't believe in usin'
your best things all the time. My old man says I'd better let 'em alone; but he's got some queer ideas, thinks you'll sniff your nose at my letter, and all that, but I've more charity for folks, and well I might have, bein' that's my name.
”CHARITY DOUGLAS.”
To this letter were appended three different postscripts. In the first Madam Conway and Maggie were cordially invited to visit Charlton again; in the second Betsy Jane sent her regrets; while in the third Madam Conway was particularly requested to excuse haste and a bad pen.
”Disgusting creature!” was Madam Conway's exclamation as she finished the letter, then tossing it into the fire without a pa.s.sing thought, she took up another one, which had come by the same mail, and was from Theo herself.
After dwelling at length upon the numerous calls she made, the parties she attended, the compliments she received, and her curiosity to know why her grandmother came back that day, she spoke of her recent visit in Charlton.
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