Читать книгу Magdalen's Vow - May Agnes Fleming - Страница 10

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Punctual to the moment, on Friday morning Mr. George Barstone made his appearance, in a cab, at the residence of Mrs. Howard, and by that lady (drowned in tears) Miss Wayne and her belongings were given into custody.

If the truth must be told, and the weakness of the most amiable of mankind expressed, Mr. Barstone had been in a fever for the hour to come. The great gray eyes and shining tresses of Mrs. Howard's governess had haunted him strangely and pertinaciously during the intervening time. If he sat placidly smoking his big brown meerschaum, the exquisite face shone on him through the misty vapor like a star through a fog; if he went to the theater or sat down to dinner or sauntered along Broadway, the pale face and fair brown hair rose up before him, and blotted, for the time being, everything else out. But then men naturally take an interest in their aunts' governesses. If she had been the amiable owner of red hair and a pug nose, no doubt it would have been just the same.

The June weather was at its brightest and best when Mr. Barstone and his fair companion started on their "Down-East" journey, and the jocund sunshine was reflected in the gentleman's beaming face. But Miss Wayne, distrait, not to say gloomy, sat with her veil down, gazing out at the sunlit landscape flitting by. Mr. Barstone noticed this presently and gave up trying to be entertaining.

"She has been to see her friends in the country," he thought, "and, perhaps, has found a screw loose somewhere. She seems out of spirits, poor little thing, so I won't bore her talking."

So Mr. Barstone pulled out the morning paper, and got into the politics, and forgot the flight of time and the young lady beside him. But she was too pretty to be forgotten long, and when they reached Hartford and stopped for refreshments, he insisted on her leaving the car and having something to eat.

"Traveling's hungry business," he remarked, profoundly; "it always makes me ravenous, and you've had no dinner."

But Miss Wayne was not ravenous, and only wanted a cup of tea, and then walked up and down the platform by herself until the bell rang. She had thrown back her veil, and her face looked sad and downcast as she resumed her seat.

"She's lonely, perhaps, leaving Mrs. Howard," reflected Mr. Barstone, looking at her with pitying interest; "and she is going among strangers, who may ill use her, for all she knows. I wish she was my sister; it's bad enough for a man—a great, rough fellow like me—to knock about the sharp corners of this crooked world; but for a pretty, delicate creature like that! I do think," mused the young man rather irrelevantly, "she has the most beautiful face I ever saw!"

In the amber haze of the early afternoon the passengers for Millford got out at the junction. There was no conveyance waiting for Mr. Barstone and his companion, but he explained away that little circumstance.

"I know how cramping it is to the energies to sit a whole day in the cars, and I thought you would like to stretch your—I mean," said Mr. Barstone, checking himself, in considerable embarrassment, "as the walk from the junction to the town is only half a mile, you might prefer it."

"And I do," said Miss Wayne, accepting his proffered arm. "How very smoky your Millford is!"

"So many manufactories, you see," replied the Millfordian. "Quite a thriving and bustling place, I assure you, though rather grimy on the face of it. It is a lively sight on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, when the factory ladies turn out and parade the streets. They're in the caterpillar state all week—dirty faces and no crinoline—but on those two days they wash up and come out gaudy butterflies, in glancing silks and artificial flowers. They have hard work, and one pities them sometimes; but, on the whole, they look rather jolly, and as if they enjoyed it."

Miss Wayne found very little to interest her in the noisy, sooty, manufacturing town of Millford. Beyond the sooty streets the blue, bright river flowed, sparkling in the glorious sunshine, as if sown with diamonds.

Mr. Barstone turned out of the black streets, presently, into a more quiet and aristocratic thoroughfare, where trees and shutters were dazzlingly green, and houses and curtains vividly white. Before one of these dwellings a horse and buggy stood waiting, the horse asleep in the lazy sunshine, and the boy who held the reins very little better. This equipage and the spotless wooden mansion before which it stood Mr. Barstone pointed out with considerable interest.

"That's the trap from Golden Willows, with Sam, the pony, and Bill, the driver, fast asleep. Reminds one of Dickens' Fat Boy, doesn't it? This is my office—behold that door-plate. 'G. Barstone, Barrister-at-law.' A man might do better in Hartford or New York; but what with factory hands breaking each other's heads, and manufacturers cheating one another and their employees, and breach of promise cases, and such odds and ends, business, even here, is delightfully brisk."

Mr. Barstone assisted Miss Wayne into the buggy, took a seat beside her and drove off. Bill, the drowsy, woke up, to take a prolonged stare at the young lady, and then relapsed into a back seat and his former somnambulistic state.

"Has Mr. Philip gone yet, Bill?" inquired Mr. Barstone.

"Went this morning, sir," Bill responded; "7:50 train; Miss Fanny, she got up, she did, and drove him to the station herself. The missis ain't been very well."

"Ah!" said Mr. Barstone, gravely, "I'm sorry to hear that. My aunt, Miss Wayne, has been in delicate health for many years, and unable to leave her room."

Miss Wayne murmured her sympathy. They were bowling along a pleasant country road by this time, with waving trees and swelling fields on either hand and blue glimpses of the sparkling river beyond.

"Pretty road, is it not?" quoth the lawyer. "The Lake Road, they call it. You can't see the lake yet; it is about two miles in length, and our house is at the other extremity. Golden Willows is just five miles from Millford—near enough to be convenient, distant enough to escape the noise and dirt. There's the lake now—seven feet below us."

Miss Wayne looked over the roadside embankment and saw the lake lying between green slopes, like a diamond set in emeralds. Very placid, very beautiful, very lonely—no living thing near. The sunlight lighted the center; the edges were so overhung with pollard willows and sycamores as to be in blackest gloom. Its long white shore dazzled the eyes like sunshine on snow.

"A pretty place," the governess said; "a beautiful place, but, oh! so lonely. Is it always like this?"

"By no means," briskly responded the young man. "You should see it Sunday evenings, after tea, when the young factory ladies and their beaux come here, to do the sentimental in the summer twilight. And you should see it in winter, when it's nicely frosted over, like a huge wedding cake, and the thermometer is tremendously below zero, and half the population of Millford are strapped up in skates! By the way, I hope you're fond of skating, Miss Wayne; if you're not, we'll try and make you fond of it."

Miss Wayne laughed good-naturedly, as they rattled lightly along, and Mr. Barstone proceeded:

"We'll come in sight of our house directly. Do you like old houses, Miss Wayne? because Golden Willows is old, as age goes in New England. It was built before the Revolution by a Mayflower ancestor, and the rooms are low and a trifle dark, with wainscotings and diamond-paned casements. The front door is ponderous enough to stand a siege, and the bedrooms are grand, gloomy and peculiar. It's not haunted, more's the pity; but one wouldn't be surprised if, waking in the dead of night, he saw an old lady sitting at the foot of the bed, in high-heeled shoes and satin petticoat and powdered hair in a pyramid on the top of her head. It looks like that sort of thing, you know."

Miss Wayne laughed once more. It seemed impossible to entertain gloomy thoughts long in the genial company of Mr. Barstone. Being all sunshine himself, it was only natural that a trifle of the superabundant light and happiness of his nature should illumine less fortunate mortals near him.

They were at the house, driving through a tall, clanking gateway, up a straight avenue, where great maples made greenish gloom at noonday. To the right there was an ornamental fish-pond, with trailing yellow willows all around and a willow walk led, away to the left, down direct to the lake. The house itself was long and low and quaint, built of gray stone, with a massive door and peaked porch, all overrun with sweet briar and creeping pine roses.

"Such a pretty place!" Miss Wayne exclaimed, her eyes lighting. "Such a quiet, pretty place! Golden Willows is worthy of its romantic name."

"I thought you would like it," said Mr. Barstone. "There isn't a tree or a stone or a flower about it that isn't worth its weight in gold to me. Ah, Fanny, my dear, there you are, peeping from behind the curtain and thinking we don't see you! She's gone, Miss Wayne, but she was reconnoitering a second ago!"

Miss Wayne smiled and followed her leader into the house. She had seen the lace curtain raised and a face peeping out, but in a twinkling it was withdrawn, and there was the sound of a piano and a girlish voice singing.

Mr. Barstone led the way into a long, dusky hall, rich in pictures and busts, and thence into a pretty summer parlor—carpet and walls and chairs all white and blue. Canaries sang, flowers bloomed, bouquets, in fragile porcelain vases, were everywhere, and they caught the last verse of the young lady's song as they opened the door.

'Oh, when the bays are all my own,

I know a heart will care;

Oh, when the gold is wooed and won

I know a brow will wear—

Aileen,

I know a brow will wear—"

"Very pretty indeed," remarked Mr. Barstone, remorselessly cutting her short; "but no more at present! Please turn round and welcome the master of the house."

The young lady whirled about on her revolving seat, got up with a faint exclamation and held out one pudgy little paw.

A short, round-about damsel was Miss Fanny Winters, with a prevailing pinkness of skin, flushed cheeks, profuse brown hair, tinged with a strong suspicion of red, brown-like eyes and a prevailing expression of intense good nature.

"I'm so glad you've come back, George," said this young person, kissing him. "You've no idea what a long, stupid day it has been. Old Doctor What-you-may-call-him, in New York, telegraphed for Phil last evening, and, of course, he had to start the first thing to-day. And Aunt Lydia's been ill, and I've had nothing new to read and no permission to open the piano, and I've been wishing for you—oh, dreadfully!"

"As a last resource against blue devils—much obliged to you, Miss Winters. Miss Wayne, allow me to introduce your future pupil, Fanny Winters!"

Miss Winters flirted out her muslin skirts, starched to a painful degree of stiffness, and made Miss Wayne an elaborately graceful bow.

"I'm very glad to see you, Miss Wayne, and I hope we shall be the best of friends, for you've no idea how horribly dull and stupid it is here—has she, George? What with Aunt Lydia sick and George in Millford and Phil in New York, I should have gone stark, staring mad of loneliness long ago, only for the circulating library. And even that is not to be depended on at all times, for the most interesting pages are generally torn out, and you know how provoking that is. I hope you like novels, Miss Wayne, because, if you do, I'm sure we will get along together splendidly."

"Yes," said Mr. Barstone, "if you don't talk Miss Wayne into her grave in a month. Your future pupil, you perceive, emulates your friend, Mrs. Howard. Nonsense flows from her lips in a perennial stream. I give you fair warning, Miss Wayne, cut her short, or she'll drive you to the verge of idiocy."

"Having survived Mrs. Howard a year, I think I am proof against anything Miss Winters can do in that line," said Magdalen laughing. "I am certain we will get on together extremely well."

"And you won't be dreadful about history and geology and rhetoric and things," pleaded Miss Winters, piteously, "because I can never remember old red sandstone and formations and dates and the Gauls and the ancient Romans and all such things Miss Grimwig used to go on so about. It wasn't a bit of use; it only made my head ache, and went in one ear and out at the other. And for music and French—I like polkas when they're easy, and nice little fables to translate, and if I get the spelling and the genders wrong, you won't be cross, will you? And now let's go up-stairs and take off your things."

"And if you can make it convenient, Fan, to order supper an hour earlier than usual," said the young lawyer, "we will be infinitely obliged to you, for Miss Wayne has had nothing since breakfast, and my appetite is always in working condition."

Miss Winters promised, and led her new governess up-stairs, chattering all the way like a magpie. The upper hall was long, dimly lighted, hung with pictures and flanked by many doors.

"These are the chambers," said Miss Winters. "This is Aunt Lydia's. You can't see her to-night, you know, because she feels poorly; but you will to-morrow. This is George's room, this is Phil's, and on the other side is yours and mine. Now take your things off; I must run down and see about tea, but I'll be back directly."

The governess' chamber was a very neat and pretty one, overlooking the orchard and lake. The wide, green prospect, the steel-blue, low-lying lake, the swelling expanse of green earth and azure sky, were all very pleasant after her cramped-up city experience.

"How happy I might be here," she thought; "how happy I would be if I were like other girls of my age—if I had no dark secret to cloud and trouble my life. I like this cheery Miss Winters, I like that agreeable Mr. Barstone. If I could only blot out the dreary past and be simply and honestly happy, as it is in my nature to be. But I dare not—I will not! Laura in her lonely grave, Willie in his gloomy prison, must not be forgotten. I must never give up my search for the double, the treble murderer. I must keep my vow!"