Читать книгу Mildred Keith - Complete 7 Book Collection - Finley Martha - Страница 25

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"Seldom shall she hear a tale

So sad, so tender, and so true."

Horace Dinsmore showed much interest in Mildred, seemed to like to watch her, let her employment be what it might, and to have her company in long solitary walks and drives.

Several times he remarked to her mother that she was growing very lovely in person and was a girl of fine mind; adding that he sincerely hoped she would not throw herself away upon some country boor.

The two—Mrs. Keith and Mr. Dinsmore—were alone in the sitting-room, one pleasant afternoon early in September, when this remark was made for the third or fourth time; alone except that little Annis was playing about the floor, apparently absorbed with Toy and her doll.

Mrs. Keith was sewing, her cousin who had been pacing to and fro, now standing before her.

She lifted her head with a startled look.

"Horace, don't forget that you and Mildred are cousins."

He colored slightly, then laughingly answered to her thought rather than her words,

"Don't be alarmed, Marcia; I'm not thinking of her in that way at all."

His face suddenly clouded as with some gloomy recollection.

"Marcia," he said, taking a chair near her side, "my visit is drawing to a close and there is something I must tell you before I go; I came with the purpose of doing so, but hitherto my heart has failed me. We seem to be alone in the house and perhaps there will be no better time than this."

"I think not," she said, "we can secure ourselves from intrusion by locking the door."

He rose, turned the key, and came back.

He did not speak again for a moment, but sat watching Annis with a peculiar expression which excited his cousin's surprise and curiosity and not for the first time either; she had noted it before; the child seemed to both attract and repel him.

More than once Mrs. Keith had seen him snatch her up suddenly with a gesture of strong affection, only to set her down the next minute and turn away as if from something painful to look upon.

"What is it you see in my baby, Horace?" she asked, laying her hand affectionately upon his arm.

"She is a sweet, pretty little thing, yet it gives me more pain than pleasure to look at her," he said sighing and passing his hand across his brow.

"You cannot imagine why it should," he went on, smiling sadly into his cousin's wondering face, "because there is a page in my past life that you have never read."

His features worked with emotion. He rose and paced the floor back and forth several times; then coming to her side again,

"Marcia, I have been a husband; I am a father; my little girl—whom I have never seen—must be just about the age of Annis."

"You, Horace? you are but twenty years old!" dropping her work to look up at him in utter amazement.

"I knew you would be astonished—that you could hardly credit it—but it is true."

Then resuming his seat he poured out in impassioned language, the story already so well known to the readers of the Elsie books—of his visit to New Orleans three years before this, his hasty and clandestine marriage to the beautiful heiress, Elsie Grayson, their speedy separation by her guardian and big father, the subsequent birth of their little daughter and the death of the young mother, following so soon thereafter.

Her work forgotten, her hands lying idly in her lap, her eyes gazing intently into his, Mrs. Keith listened in almost breathless silence, the tears coursing down her cheeks during the saddest passages.

"My poor Horace! my poor, dear cousin!" she said when he had finished. "Oh, it was hard, very hard! Why did you never tell me before."

"I could not, Marcia," he answered in tremulous tones, "it is the first time I have spoken my darling's name since—since I knew that she was lost to me forever."

"Forever! oh do not say that! You have told me she was a sweet Christian girl, and none who trust in Jesus can ever be lost."

"But to me; I am no Christian," he sighed.

"But you may become one. The invitation is to you, 'Come unto me;' and the blessed assurance, 'Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.'"

He sat silent, his face averted, his head bowed upon his hands.

She waited a moment, then spoke again.

"Your child, Horace?"

"She is at Viamede with the guardian."

"And you have never seen her?"

"No."

"Oh how can you bear it? doesn't your heart yearn over her? don't you long to have her in your arms?"

"No; why should I? she robbed me of her—my darling wife."

"But you do not know that? and certainly it was innocently, if at all."

"That has always been my feeling."

"You ought not to allow yourself to feel so," she said almost indignantly. "Poor little motherless darling! must she be worse than fatherless too?"

"What would you have, Marcia?" he asked coldly, his face still turned from her, "what could I do with a child? And she is well off where she is; better than she could be anywhere else;—under the care of a pious old Scotch woman who has been house-keeper in the Grayson family for many years, and that of her mammy who nursed her mother before her: a faithful old creature so proud and fond of her young mistress that I doubt if she would have hesitated to lay down her life for her."

"That is well so far as it goes, Horace, but do you wish your child to grow up a stranger to you? would you have no hand in the moulding of her character, the training of her mind?"

"I had not thought of that," he said sighing, "but I do not feel competent to the task."

"But it is your work; a work God himself has appointed you in giving you the child; a work for which he will give wisdom if you seek it of him.

"'If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not: and it shall be given him.'

"And if you neglect it, my dear cousin,—bear with me, while I say it—it will be at your peril."

"How do you mean, Marcia?"

"The day may come when you will want that child's love and obedience: when you will covet them more than any other earthly good, and perhaps, find that they are denied you."

"It is possible you may be right in regard to the first," he said haughtily, his dark eyes flashing, as he turned his face towards her again, "but as to the other—her obedience—it will be strange indeed if I cannot compel it. She may have a strong will, but she will find that mine is yet stronger."

"Horace," said his cousin earnestly, "if you refuse or neglect to do a father's duty by her, what right can you have to claim a child's duty from her?"

"I am not conscious of having neglected my duty toward her thus far," he said, still haughtily. "As I have already explained, she is where, in my judgment, she is better off for the present, than she could be anywhere else. What changes may come in the future I do not know."

"Forgive me if I have seemed to blame you undeservedly," Mrs. Keith said with tears in her eyes; "but ah, my heart yearns over that poor baby!"

She caught up her own and kissed it passionately as she spoke.

"Ah!" she sighed, pressing the little creature to her bosom, "whatever would my darlings do without a father's and a mother's love!"

He walked to the window and stood there for several minutes. Then coming back,

"Marcia," he said, "will you do me the favor to write about this to Aunt Wealthy and tell her I have always felt ashamed of my behavior during my visit to you both, two years ago. I could not bring myself to explain then the cause of my—what shall I call it? sullenness? It must have looked like it to you and her and to all who saw me.

"But you will understand it now and perhaps have some charity for me."

"We had then, Horace," she said, "we were sure it was some secret grief that made you so unlike your former self. Yes, I will write to Aunt Wealthy. May I tell your story to Mildred also?"

"Not now, please. When I am gone she may hear it."

"Excuse another question. Do you know anything of your little one's looks?"

"I have heard nothing; but if she at all resembles her mother, she must be very pretty."

"And you have never even asked! O Horace!"

"I'm afraid you think me very heartless," he said, coloring. "But you must make some allowance for my being a man. Women, I think, feel more interest in such things than we of the sterner sex do."

"Then I think my husband must be an exceptional man, for he loves his children very dearly, and takes great pride in their beauty and intelligence."

"I daresay; it might have been the same with me under happier circumstances," he answered in a bitter tone.

Little feet came pitpatting through the hall, little voices were asking for mother.

Mr. Dinsmore opened the door and admitted the inseparable three.

"Mother, I'm cold," said Fan shivering, and her teeth chattering as she spoke.

"Cold, darling? Come here."

"She's got a chill," remarked Cyril sagely. "I'm as warm as toast. It's real hot in the sun where we've been playing."

"I'm afraid she has; her nails are quite blue," Mrs. Keith said, taking one small hand in hers. "Come, dear; mother will put you to bed and cover you up nice and warm, and give you something hot to drink."

"Me too, mother," said Don, creeping to her side and laying his head on her shoulder, "I'm so tired and my head aches so bad."

His cheeks were flushed, his hands hot and dry.

"You, too, mother's little man?" she exclaimed. "Mother is so sorry for you both. Have you been cold, Don?"

"Yes, ma'am, and it creeps down my back now."

"Take care of Annis, Cyril," said Mrs. Keith, and excusing herself to her cousin, she led the sick ones away.

Coming back after some little time, "I found Ada down, too," she sighed. "She had crept away by herself, without a word to any one—poor, dear child! 'not wanting to trouble mother,' and there she lay shaking till the very bed shook under her."

"It's dreadful!" cried Mr. Dinsmore, "positively dreadful, Marcia! How can you stand it! I believe there has hardly been a week since I came when you were all well."

"Ah, that's because there are so many of us!" she answered, laughing, though tears sprang to her eyes.

"Why do you stay here! I'd pack up everything and be off instanter."

"Necessity knows no law," she said. "Cyril, son, can you go down to the spring and get some fresh water for the sick ones?"

"Yes, ma'am; I'll take the biggest bucket; cause folks always want to drink so much water when the chill's on 'em."

"Cyril knows that by experience," his mother remarked as the boy left the room.

"Why do you speak of staying here as a necessity, Marcia?" asked her cousin. "You had as large a fortune from your mother as I from mine."

"Riches take wings, Horace, and a large family and unfortunate investments supplied them to mine."

She spoke cheerfully, jestingly, as though it were but occasion for mirth, but his tone was full of concern as he answered,

"Indeed I never knew that. It is a thousand pities! I wonder you can be so content and light-hearted as you seem."

"Ah, I have so much left! All my chiefest treasures,—husband, children, many great and precious promises for both this life and the next."

"Ah, but if you stay here, how long are you likely to keep husband and children? not to speak of the danger to your own life and health."

"Sickness and death find entrance everywhere in this sad world," she said; her voice trembling slightly, "and in all places we are under the same loving care. It seems our duty to stay here, and the path of duty is the safest. It is thought that in a few years this will become a healthy country."

"I hope so, indeed, for your sake, but it is a hard one for you in other ways. I am not so unobservant as not to have discovered that you do a great deal of your own work. And I don't like that it should be so, Marcia."

"You are very kind," she answered, smiling up brightly into his face as he stood looking down upon her with a vexed and anxious expression, "It is very nice to have you care so much for me, Horace."

"There's nobody in the world I care more for, Marcia," he said, "and going over some of our late talk, in my mind, I have thought there is nobody to whom I should so much like to commit the care and training of my child. I mean, of course, if your hands were not already full and more than full with your own."

"They are not so full that I would not gladly do a mother's part by her," she answered with emotion, "were it not for the danger of bringing her to this climate."

"Yes, that is the difficulty. It would never do, so miasmatic and so cold and bleak during a great part of the year; especially for one born so far south. But I thank you, cousin, all the same."

"We have not much sickness here except ague," she remarked presently, "but there are several varieties of that—chills and fever occurring at regular intervals—generally every other day at about the same hour; dumb ague, shaking ague, and sinking or congestive chills; which last are the only very alarming kind, sometimes proving fatal in a few hours."

"Indeed! you almost frighten me away," he said half seriously, half in jest. "That is not a very common form, I hope?"

"No, rather rare."

"Don't you send for the doctor?"

"Not often now; we did at first, but it is so frequent a visitor that we have learned to manage it ourselves."

The sickly season had fairly set in, and more afraid of it than he liked to acknowledge, Mr. Dinsmore hastened his departure, leaving for the East by the next stage.