Part 22 (1/2)
His sister's lips twitched nervously into a sinister smile. It was as if she would have whispered, had she dared, ”Heaven forbid!”
”You have chosen a toilsome and a perilous path, Clara,” he resumed, by and by. ”I do not wonder that you are, with all your courage and sanguine trust in your own powers, sometimes disquieted, and often weary.”
”Who says that I am ever weary? And did you ever know me to disquiet myself in vain?” with the low, musical ripple of laughter that belonged to her sunniest mood. ”Had I been born in the cla.s.sic age, I should have been a devout disciple of Epicurus. Don't imagine that my success has not, thus far, amply repaid me for my toil and ingenuity. Having lived upon excitement all my days, I should starve without it. Pleasure, like safety, is the dearer for being plucked from that evergreen nettle, Danger!”
CHAPTER XV. -- THE GOOD SAMARITAN.
THE snows of ten winters had powdered the nameless stranger's grave in the servant's burial-ground of the Ridgeley plantation. For nine years the wallet taken from his person had lain unopened in a hidden drawer of Mabel Dorrance's escritoire, and the half-guessed secret been hidden in her breast. Mammy Phillis had followed her mistress to the tomb, six months after her removal from her beloved cottage to the despised ”quarters.” She never held up her head from the day of her degradation, died from a broken heart, murmured those who best knew her--of a ”fit of spleen,” said Mrs. Aylett, in cool reprehension of her unmannerly va.s.sal.
Mabel had guarded the mystery well. Her husband examined her--covertly, as he thought; awkwardly, according to her ideas--with regard to the vagaries of her delirium, and was foiled by the grave simplicity of her manner and replies.
”All she knows or remembers is substantially this,” Herbert jotted down in his notes for his sister's perusal: ”she has a.s.sociated in some way--she cannot tell exactly how or why--the name with the tramp who died in the garret. She is not sure that it was his designation. Thinks it was not, or that, if used by him, it was an alias. Has an impression that it was marked upon his clothing, or upon a paper found in his pocket. Showed no agitation and little interest in the subject, except when she inquired if I saw the stranger at all--living or dead. Was glad I could reply truly, 'No.' Answer seemed to gratify her, which you may consider a disagreeable augury. Am convinced that her illness resulted from natural and unavoidable causes--that neither F---C---nor J----L---had any connection with it. It will be months before mind and body recover their tone.”
”Lawyerly! ergo, absurd and unsatisfactory!” p.r.o.nounced the reader, to whom the foregoing leaf had been committed on the morning of her brother's departure with his slowly-convalescing wife for their Albany home. ”But until the nettle p.r.i.c.ks more nearly, I shall continue to enjoy my roses.”
They had blossomed thickly about her path during this decade. Her matronly beauty was the wonder and praise of the community. The changing seasons that had bleached the locks upon her husband's temples and heightened his forehead had spared the bronzed chestnut of her luxuriant tresses. Her figure was larger and fuller, but graceful, and more queenly than of yore--if that could be. There was not an untuneful inflection in her voice, or a furrow between her brows. Under her careful management the homestead wore every year an air of increased elegance. No other furniture for many miles on both sides of the river could compare with hers; no other servants were so well-trained, no grounds so beautifully ornamented and trimly kept.
”But for all that Ridgeley is a lonely, desolate place to me,” said Mrs.
Sutton, one early spring morning to her niece and crony, Mrs. William Sutton. ”A house without children is worse than a last year's bird's nest. It is a riddle to me how Clara Aylett contrives to occupy her time.”
”She should have some of these socks to darn, if it hangs upon her hands,” replied Mrs. William, humorously, running her five fingers through the toe of one she had just picked up from the great willow basket set between the two upon the porch-floor.
”The Lord isn't very apt to make mothers out of that sort of material,”
said the elder lady. ”Nor fathers out of Winston Ayletts. They are so wrapped up in their self-consequence as to have no thought for others.”
”Yet they say Mr. Aylett regrets that he has no heir. It is a great pity Mabel lost her only child as she did. The family will become extinct in another generation. It is such a n.o.ble estate, too!”
”Large families were never the rule among the Ayletts,” responded Aunt Rachel. ”But I did hope my dear Mabel would be an exception to the rest in this respect. She would adopt a little girl, but her husband will not consent. Those Dorrances are a cold-hearted race. He, too, is heaping up riches, without knowing who shall gather them. Heigh-ho!”
Her darning-needle quilted the yawning heel of Tommy Sutton's sock with precision and celerity, and she ruminated silently upon the vicissitudes and failures of mortal life until she was interrupted by Mrs. William's exclamation:
”There is Mrs. Tazewell's carriage at the gate, and the driver has a letter in his hand. I hope the old lady is not worse!”
Aunt Rachel met the man at the steps, with neighborly anxiety.
”How is your mistress, Jack?”
”'Bout the same, ma'am. But Miss Rosa--she came last night very unexpected, and it kinder worsted Mistis to see her so poorly. This note is from Miss Rosa, ma'am, and I am to take back an answer.”
Mrs. Sutton read it standing in the porch--the scented leaflet that had a look of the writer all over it, from the scarlet monogram at the top of the sheet and upon the envelope, to the flourish of the signature--”Rosa T. C.”--the curl of the C carried around the rest like a medallion frame:
”DEAR, GOOD AUNT RACHEL,--I have come to Old Virginia to try and shake off an uncomfortable cough which has haunted me all winter. The Northern quacks can do nothing for me. One ray of this delicious suns.h.i.+ne is worth all their nostrums. I was not prepared to find mamma helpless, or I should not have descended upon her so unceremoniously. Being here, I cannot retreat in good order or with safety to my health, nor without wounding her. Frederic must return to Philadelphia next week, by which time I hope to be quite invigorated. Now for my audacious proposal.
Can you come over and tell me how to get well in the quickest and least troublesome way? Dear Auntie! you loved me once. When you see what a poor, spiritless shadow I have grown--or lessened--to be, you will care a little bit for me again, for the sake of lang syne.”
Mrs. Sutton wiped her spectacles and gave the note to her niece.
”There is but one thing for me to do, you see, my dear. Jack! I shall be ready in twenty minutes.”