Kitabı oku: «Signing the Contract and What it Cost», sayfa 16

For once Ethel had utterly forgotten her quest, and did not look into a single one of the hundreds of faces she passed. But a bright little girl, standing at the foot of those same marble steps, and holding fast to the hand of a young man, was more observant.

“What a pretty lady, Ellis!” she said, gazing after Ethel’s lithe, graceful figure as it flitted by. “And she looks like Dora. I thought it was at first, but she has another sort of dress on.”

“Yes, Nan, it was a pretty face, and something like Dora’s, I thought too,” returned the lad. “You are tired, little sister, and yonder is an empty seat. Shall we go to it?”

“Yes – no; see, they’re coming now.”

Then letting go his hand, and running to meet a lady and gentleman who were sauntering toward them from the direction of the Main Building, “Papa and mamma,” she cried, “Ellis and I have been waiting a long time. Shall we go in now to see the pictures?”

“It is growing late, Nan, and tea will be ready by the time we can get home if we start at once,” said the father. “Your mother is much fatigued, too – very tired indeed; so we will leave the pictures for another time.”

“Well, I don’t care, if mamma’s tired,” said the child, putting her hand into his.

Both parents smiled approval, and the little party walked away together toward the place of exit from the grounds.

In the mean time Espy was making way for himself and Ethel through the crowds that filled the corridors of Memorial Hall.

Reaching that portion of the building appropriated to the works of American artists, he paused for a moment or two before several paintings in succession, calling her attention to the good points of each, and giving the artist’s name; but when they came to his own he waited silently for her to speak.

One glance, and she turned to him, her eyes full, her features working with emotion.

“Mother!” was the one word that came low and gaspingly from the quivering lips.

His face was a study, the gratified pride of the artist mingling with the tender sympathy of the lover.

He drew her arm within his, for she was trembling like an aspen leaf.

She allowed him to support her while she turned again to the picture and studied it with mournful pleasure.

Mrs. Kemper’s face was a peculiar one, and had changed but little during the fifteen quiet, uneventful years of her life in Cranley. This picture of Espy’s – painted from memory – represented her as he had first seen her, with the little Ethel by her side dressed as she was then, and holding her doll in her arms. The pretty baby-face was as perfect a likeness as the other. Memory had done him good service here also, and, in addition, he had had the assistance of a photograph taken about that time.

A second painting hung by the side of the first – a full-length portrait of our heroine standing on the threshold of her Cranley home, as Espy had seen her on looking back after bidding her good-by when leaving for college the last time before the accident that wrought such woe to the young, light-hearted girl whose pathway had been hitherto so bright and sunny.

It was a speaking likeness of a very lovely face, fair and winning, with the freshness of early youth and the sweetness and vivacity lent it by a keen intellect and a happy, loving heart. The figure and attitude were the perfection of symmetry and grace.

It received many a lingering look of admiration from strangers, but a single glance was all that Ethel bestowed upon it.

But Mrs. Kemper’s face chained her. For many minutes her eyes were riveted upon it.

“Do not sell this; I must have it,” she said to Espy as at last she turned sighing away.

“It is yours from this moment,” he said, flashing upon her a look of ecstatic love.

“It must be late; see how long the shadows are!” she remarked as they came down the marble steps. “Ah, my aunt has sent for us! how fortunate!” as she espied a carriage at some little distance, Rory upon the box, driving slowly along and looking this way and that as if in search of some one.

She signalled him, and in another minute they were bowling rapidly homeward.

Arrived, Espy was requested to take a seat in the parlor while Ethel ran up to her aunt’s room.

The Madame was at first disposed to be cross, but on hearing the wonderful news her mood changed.

“Was ever anything so fortunate!” she cried, hugging her niece enthusiastically. “My darling Pansy, I congratulate you with all my heart. He shall be quite at home here and the course of true love run smooth from this on, if I can make it do so.”

Then Mary was directed to go down and show the young gentleman to a room where he could attend to the duties of the toilet, the Madame remarking:

“One always feels like washing and brushing after tramping round all day in the heat and dust. And, Pansy, you must make him understand that we consider him just one of ourselves. The tea-table is already set in my boudoir; another plate shall be added, and we will all sup there together. Now run away and make yourself fine.”

“Neat and ladylike, but not too fine, auntie,” Ethel responded, bending down to her with a smiling face, her cheeks glowing, her eyes dancing with health and happiness. “For a reason I have, I want him not to know or suspect how rich we are, so please help on my innocent deception.”

“Very well, it is all one to me what he thinks about that,” the Madame answered good-naturedly, and Ethel tripped away to make the necessary changes in her attire.

In common with other sensible people, she dressed very simply and inexpensively for a day at the Centennial. Her toilet for the evening was charmingly becoming, and suited to Espy’s artist taste, yet but little more elaborate or costly than the other.

Espy was much struck by the Madame’s appearance, so different from that of her fair niece – her unwieldy figure, enormous size, swarthy features, ungainly movements, and asthmatic breathing; but she was very gracious to him, an excellent foil to Ethel’s beauty, and so kindly considerate as to leave them to themselves for the evening directly tea was over.

CHAPTER XXXVII
LOVE’S POSY

 
“Such is the posy love composes —
A stinging nettle mix’d with roses.” —
 

Brown.

Two or three as blissful weeks as perhaps mortals ever know passed over the heads of our lovers. They were almost constantly together, alone in the crowd, for they haunted the Centennial daily, and Madame Le Conte, showing herself as considerate as at first, either remained at home or quickly dismissed them from attendance upon her, declaring that she wanted Mary, and Mary only, to walk beside her rolling chair, and help her to see the sights.

Espy’s pictures were much admired, spoken of with marked favor by the critics, and he had several good offers for them, but would not sell.

In this happy state of affairs, and with his Floy by his side, he was in the seventh heaven.

But all things earthly must have an end, and so it was with this season of almost unalloyed felicity to Ethel and Espy.

One evening the latter, hurrying out of his hotel, bound, as usual, for Madame Le Conte’s, nearly ran over an elderly gentleman who was just coming in. Scarcely looking at the stranger, he was brushing past with a hasty apology, when he felt a hand laid on his shoulder, while a familiar voice exclaimed, in loud tones of unfeigned, exultant delight, “Why, Espy! is it you? and don’t you know your own father, boy?”

“Father!” he cried, stopping short and wheeling about, half glad, half sorry at the meeting, the gladness uppermost as his parent grasped his hand in warm, fatherly greeting and gazed in his face with the proud, affectionate look often in other days, ere pride and greed of gold had come between them, bent upon the bright, promising boy.

“I did not know you were in the city, sir! When did you arrive?”

“Yesterday, or rather last night; slept late; spent the rest of the day at the Exposition; just got back. Come with me to my room. I want to talk with you; have no end of things to say. Had your supper?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I too; got it out there. I’m dreadfully tired, but there’s an easy chair in the room; so can rest and talk at the same time. Here, let’s go up in the elevator. Capital thing, isn’t it?”

“Very,” Espy answered absently, taking a seat by his father’s side, and thinking of Floy waiting and watching for his coming.

“Well, where have you been all this time?” Mr. Alden asked as he took possession of the chair he had spoken of, and signed to Espy to be seated upon another close at hand.

The young man answered briefly that the greater part of the past two years had been spent by him in Italy perfecting himself in his art; that he was now doing well pecuniarily, and hoped soon to be doing much better.

“Very good! very good indeed!” commented his father, rubbing his hands and smiling broadly. “Glad you’re doing so well, my boy; have always had your welfare very much at heart. Now about Floy Kemper – ”

Espy flushed hotly, and half rose from his chair.

“Tut, tut! wait till you hear what I have to say!” exclaimed his father, breaking off in the middle of his sentence. “I withdrew my opposition to the match long ago, as you should have been informed if I’d known where to find you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Espy said, his countenance clearing. “Everything seems to be coming round right at last. I hope that in another year I shall be in circumstances to marry.”

“He evidently hasn’t seen Floy yet,” thought Mr. Alden to himself. “Wonder if he even knows where she is? You do, eh?” he said aloud, rubbing his hands again. “If it was my case – I shouldn’t wait half that time.”

Espy’s countenance expressed surprise and inquiry.

“I did not expect such counsel from you, sir,” he remarked, “and I cannot think it would be prudent in me, or kind to Floy, to rush into matrimony before I have proved my ability to support a wife.”

“Very wise and sensible if you were marrying a poor girl,” returned his father, with an unpleasant laugh; “but the income from a hundred thousand might suffice, I should think, to begin upon in a modest way.”

“What – what can you mean, sir?” exclaimed Espy, springing to his feet, his face flushing and paling by turns.

“That’s the exact sum, as I’ve been credibly informed, that Floy’s aunt has already settled upon her, and she’s altogether likely to prove the only heir to the half million the old lady still has in her possession.” And Mr. Alden laughed gleefully, rubbing his hands rapidly over each other; then stroking his beard and glancing at his son, he perceived with astonishment that his countenance was pale and distressed – that he looked stunned as if by a heavy blow.

“Why, Espy, what’s the matter?” he exclaimed in extreme surprise; “thought you’d be delighted with such good news. But perhaps you’ve lost sight of the girl? Well, never mind; I can give you her address and – ”

“Father, what do you take me for?” asked the young man hoarsely, rising to his feet as he spoke. “A fortune-hunter? I hope I may never deserve the name! I do not call this good news. It seems to put Floy farther away from a poor fellow like me, and it has been the sweetest dream of my life that my toil should supply her wants.”

“Crack-brained fool!” muttered his father angrily.

But Espy did not seem to hear.

“I see now,” he went on in a tone of bitter sarcasm, “just why you have ceased to oppose my wishes and become anxious to receive Floy into the family. She will understand it too, and I am bitterly ashamed. Thanks for your offer to furnish me with her address, but I do not care to avail myself of it.”

“Humph! I perceive that it is not without reason that poets and painters are popularly supposed to lack common-sense in regard to the affairs of every-day life,” sneered the older gentleman. “But come, come, I don’t want to renew the old quarrel. Sit down and let me tell you about your brothers and sisters. They’ll be glad to hear that you have turned up once more.”

Upon that the young man resumed his seat, and for the next hour the talk was all of relatives and friends in and about Cranley.

“Well, father,” Espy said at length, taking out his watch, “I have an engagement, and you look as though you needed rest; I’d better bid you good-night. Will see you again in the morning. You’ll be staying some time in the city, I suppose?”

“Yes – no; that is, I’m going for a trip into New York and Canada; leave by the early train to-morrow morning, expect to be gone two or three weeks, maybe more, and then return here to do the Exposition. It’s the first real vacation I’ve given myself since – well, before you were born, my boy, and I mean to do the thing up brown while I’m about it.”

“I hope you will, sir. I hope you won’t go back to work till thoroughly tired of play,” Espy said laughingly. “I may not wake in time to see you off in the morning, but you’ll find me here, I think, on your return to Philadelphia.”

“Yes, I trust so; but if I shouldn’t – ”

“You shall hear from me; probably see me in Cranley in the fall. Good-night, father.”

“Good-night, my son. Don’t fail to keep your promises.” And shaking hands cordially, they separated.

It was late for a call at Madame Le Conte’s. Espy said so to himself as he left the hotel, yet set off upon that very errand, and not at all as if in haste to accomplish it. Truth to tell, he was half reluctant to meet Ethel, yet at the same time irresistibly drawn toward her.

“And she’s rich!” he mused, sauntering slowly along; “rich, and a great heiress, while I – ah me! – am poor as a church-mouse. How can I urge her to marry me? Wouldn’t it be like saying, ‘Be my provider,’ instead of, ‘Let me provide for you’? I am too proud for that. But why has she left me in ignorance of her circumstances? Did she fear that I would want to marry her for her money? She might have known me better. Did I find fault with her for resigning Mr. Kemper’s property? Did I want to give her up when she was poor and friendless?”

He grew angry and indignant as he put these queries to himself.

“Yes; she might have known me better,” he repeated. “How could she suspect me of motives so base and sordid? But no, no, it could not be that! She does know me better, is too noble herself to think that I could be capable of such meanness. No, she saw that it was a delight to me to feel that my work was to provide a home for her some day, and would not deprive me sooner than necessary of that pleasure. And yet why not tell me all? She ought to have no secrets from me, her affianced husband. And why let our marriage be delayed when there is no need? If I had sufficient means, would I not tell her of it at once, and beg that there might not be another week of delay? But she, I suppose, likes to be her own mistress, and keep her newly-acquired property in her own hands. I, perhaps, am not deemed fit to be trusted with the care of it.”

And losing sight of the fact that womanly delicacy would forbid the course he was prescribing as proper for Ethel, he grew angry again.

And so alternating between admiration and disgust at her reticence, he arrived at Madame Le Conte’s door and rang the bell.

No one answered it. He stood waiting for several minutes, so busy with his own thoughts that this did not strike him as strange. Then, suddenly growing impatient, he was about to repeat his ring, when, glancing up, he perceived that the windows were all dark except those of the Madame’s bedroom, where a faint light seemed to be burning.

“Gone to bed without waiting to see if I were coming as usual,” he muttered, descending the steps.

Then he noticed that very few lights were visible in the neighboring houses, and consulting his watch by the light of a street-lamp, found to his surprise that it was near midnight.

He recollected, too, that Floy (she was still Floy to him) had looked very weary when they left the Centennial grounds together some hours before.

“Poor darling!” he said, “I’m a brute to blame her!” and went on his way, impatient for the morrow that he might seek the desired interview.

Ethel had sat up expecting him, till the lateness of the hour convinced her that he was not coming; then she had retired, weary in body and a little heavy at heart lest some evil had befallen him, yet ridiculing and scolding herself for the folly of such fears.

 
“Oh, love! how hard a fate is thine!
Obtained with trouble, and with pain preserv’d,
Never at rest.”
 

When they met the next day, something seemed to have come between them.

“What was it?” Ethel vainly asked herself. Something light as air; something so intangible that she could not give it a name.

A change had come upon Espy, but when questioned he insisted that nothing was wrong, sometimes asking, almost testily, why she should think there was; then, in sudden penitence for his ill-humor, he would be more devoted than ever for a time, but presently fall back into moody silence.

He was still dwelling upon the information his father had given him, still querying as to his affianced’s motives in concealing the facts from him, and alternating between anger and admiration as the one or the other seemed to him the more likely to have influenced her.

“Why will she not be open with me?” he asked himself a hundred times; “then there would be no trouble.”

And she was thinking the same in regard to him.

I am inclined to think that they were both in the right there and that perfect openness between married people and lovers would save a great deal of trouble, heartache, and estrangement.

As it was, these two began to reap a bountiful harvest of each.

Espy slackened his attentions, absented himself frequently, and when he returned to her side, Ethel’s manner was constrained and cold.

The girl poured her griefs, anxieties, and perplexities into no mortal ear. She would as soon have thought of telling them to a child as to Madame Le Conte; and so, feeling the need of a sympathizing friend and counsellor, she took to longing and looking for her mother more earnestly and constantly than she had since the return of her betrothed.

“Other girls have their mothers to go to,” she would sigh to herself. “Ah, that I had mine!”

Espy was not now always by her side, and on those days when she found herself alone at the Exposition she would go to Memorial Hall, and if able to make her way through the crowd to the place where his paintings hung, would stand and gaze, through gathering tears, upon Mrs. Kemper’s portrait.

Espy came upon her there one day, approaching her unperceived, and as he noted the sadness of her countenance, the pallor of her cheek, and saw her hastily brush away a tear, his heart smote him.

He pushed his way to her side, and putting his lips to her ear,

“Floy, darling!” he whispered, “come with me; take my arm, and let me help you out of this suffocating atmosphere.”

She made no reply, but suffered him to draw her hand within his arm and lead her away.

Neither spoke until they were clear of the crowd and had reached a shaded walk, where they might converse without fear of being overheard.

Then turning resolutely to him,

“Espy,” she said, “I cannot bear this any longer. What is wrong? what is it that has come between us?”

“Why,” he said, coloring and looking down with a mortified air, “what have I done that you should ask me that, Floy? I have found no fault with you, as indeed,” he added quickly, “I have had no reason to do.”

“No, you have not found fault, but a change has come over you,” she answered sadly, “and it would be kinder, far kinder to be frank with me. Why should you not be?”

“Because you have not been so with me,” he retorted half angrily.

“I have not? Espy, you must explain; I insist upon it.” And she looked so pained that his heart smote him.

“Forgive me, Floy, darling!” he exclaimed. “I am a brute to hurt you so! But why did you leave me to learn of your changed circumstances from others? Did you fear that I would covet your wealth? that I would love it instead of you?”

“Oh, Espy! as if I could have so base a thought in connection with you!” she cried reproachfully.

“But why not tell me?” he said, coloring deeply.

“Because I saw what delight you took in the thought that you were winning the means to make a home for me, and I would not deprive you of that till I must; and because I was determined that no one should say you sought me for my money.”

He was deeply ashamed of his suspicions, and said so frankly, begging her pardon.

“We will exchange forgiveness,” she whispered, flashing a look upon him that thrilled him to his heart’s core. “I was wrong too. Henceforth let us have not the slightest concealment from each other.”

“Agreed!” he said, tenderly pressing the hand he held, and gazing with all a lover’s ardent admiration into the dear face at his side, while his heart bounded with hope and happiness.

And she? – ah, in the fulness of her content and joy even her long-lost, long-sought mother was for the moment forgotten.