Читать книгу Magdalen's Vow - May Agnes Fleming - Страница 15

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"Man proposes, but God disposes," saith the proverb. George Barstone laid his head on his pillow, at three o'clock next morning, with the invincible resolution of asking the bright-haired governess to be his wife before the day ended, and fell asleep under the soothing influence of that determination. But destiny had decreed otherwise. Awaking late in the forenoon from a dream of his amber-tressed idol, he beheld Bill, the boy, standing by his bedside, like an ugly little guardian angel.

"A letter, Mr. George—jest come, sir; man brought it from the telegraph office in town, and you're to sign your name."

George took it, and read its brief contents with a very blank face. It was from New York, from the elderly physician with whom his cousin, Philip, was connected.

Come here, if you can. P.'s met with an accident—serious, but not fatal.

Richard Masterson.

George Barstone was very earnestly attached to his cousin. They had grown up together as boys; they had run their college course side by side, and, of late years, separation had rather strengthened than weakened their fraternal attachment. In the first shock and consternation of the news, the lawyer, the lover, absolutely forgot his lady love.

"An accident," George thought, staring blankly at the telegram; "serious, but not fatal! Good heavens! what can have happened to him? I'll run up to New York this very day!"

He sprang out of bed at once, and rapidly began to dress.

"I must tell Aunt Lydia, of course. She isn't up yet, and it seems a pity to awake her, after last night; but it can't be helped. Poor Phil! he must have requested Masterson to telegraph for me—the old bear never would do it himself. He always did want me, whenever he got into a scrape, I remember."

George, having completed his toilet, sought his aunt's room. She was awake, though not up, when he rapped, and answered at once:

"Is it you, George? Come right in. What is it?"

George explained.

Miss Barstone was excessively shocked and startled. She was as fond of her two nephews as a widowed mother might be of her two sons.

"Poor Phil! poor, dear boy! Oh, George, if it should be dangerous!"

"The telegram says not, aunt."

"You must go to New York at once, George. My poor Phil! I shall have no peace until I hear from you. Are you in time for the noon train?"

George looked at his watch.

"It will pass through Millford in an hour and a half—time enough, and to spare. I'll have a mouthful of breakfast, and be off immediately."

But Mr. Barstone, saying this, lingered strangely. An after thought seemed to strike him, and he stood, looping and unlooping nervously his watch-chain, and staring with a disturbed face at the opposite wall.

Miss Barstone watched him intently.

"Well, George?" she said.

George grew very red, turned abruptly, and began pacing up and down.

"Well, George?" this time with a faint, conscious smile.

"Aunt," broke out Mr. Barstone, "there's something I should like to speak to you about before I leave home."

"So I perceive. What is it?"

George, redder than ever, rumpled up his fair hair, and stared very hard at vacancy.

"Well, George? I'm waiting."

George stopped his walk as abruptly as he had commenced it, and turned full upon his relative.

"Aunt," he burst out, impetuously, "I've fallen in love!"

"Indeed!" very placidly. "Nothing new in that, George. Who is the lady?"

"Aunt Lydia," said Mr. Barstone, firmly, "this is something entirely different from the past. I'm aware how often and how egregiously I've made a donkey of myself, but this time I'm in earnest. I love her with my whole heart, and, if she refuses me, I don't care whether I live or die!"

"My poor, dear boy! And who is she?"

"She is Miss Wayne!"

"Fanny's governess? Ah, George, it is not the first time you have fallen in love with Fanny's governess!"

"It shall be the last time, aunt. The happiness of my whole life is involved in this. I meant to ask her this very day. Aunt Lydia, you cannot object to Magdalen?"

"I esteem Miss Wayne very highly, George. She is an excellent governess—a very handsome and high-bred young lady—but, with all that, I should like to know something more of the antecedents of my dear boy's future wife than I do of hers."

Mr. Barstone's anxious face turned radiant.

"Then you don't object, aunt?"

"To Miss Magdalen Wayne personally, no. I dare say I should prefer for you a wealthier bride. I am only mortal in that respect. But, after all, a fortune is not the chief consideration. You have not taken me in the least by surprise, George. I have foreseen all this for some time. If Magdalen loves you, and if there is no other drawback than her poverty, I shall raise no objection. I like her very much—very much, indeed!"

"Then," cried George, with a beaming face, "I'll ask her the moment I return from New York, and, after that, you know, you can question and cross-question her about her antecedents, and find out who her grandfather and great-grandfather were, and come at the history of the whole Wayne race. She'll come forth triumphantly from the whole ordeal, never fear. And, auntie, just own up—isn't she the loveliest creature the sun shines on?"

"Magdalen is very, very pretty!"

"And so gentle and sweet-tempered, and stately and thoroughbred! Aunt," said Mr. Barstone, in a sudden gush of despondency, as all Miss Wayne's manifold perfections burst upon him, "I don't believe she'll have me!"

"She might easily have worse, George. I like to see young men modest; but I wouldn't despair, if I were you. Meanwhile, 'time is on the wing'—the train will soon pass, and here you are."

"By Jove! yes," cried George, bolting precipitately out of the room. "Good-by, aunt! Here I linger, and poor Phil at death's door for all I know. What a selfish brute I am, to be sure!"

The young lawyer crammed the few necessaries requisite into his traveling-bag, swallowed a hasty cup of coffee, and set off.

As he took his seat in the buggy, the fair face of Magdalen Wayne shone on him from an upper window. His heart gave a great plunge as he waved his hand to the bright apparition.

"Good-by, Miss Wayne I'm off to New York. Take care of yourself till I come back!"

Miss Wayne smiled and nodded; then the pony quickly trotted George Barstone out of sight.

The young lawyer reached New York in due time, and found his cousin by no means so alarmingly ill as he had fancied. He was lying on a bed in a darkened chamber, looking uncommonly gaunt and hollow-eyed, it is true, but quite able to devour basins of broth and beef-tea, and talk to his cousin by the hour.

"Why, Phil, old fellow!" George cried, "you're not half so bad as I thought you were!"

Mr. Philip Barstone flounced over the bedclothes with a dismal groan. He was one of those big, strong men who succumb, like the fragile blossoms they are, to the first touch of illness; and, when he lay down and pulled the sheets over him, he wanted all his friends and relatives to stand howling around his bed in a dreary chorus of sympathy.

"It's worse than you think for, George," said the invalid, forlornly; "and I've been cooped up in this hole, with old Masterson feeling my pulse, and a nurse, ugly enough to set up in a corn field, pouring filthy slop down my throat, until I've had serious thoughts of getting up and blowing my brains out to escape them. That's why I made Masterson telegraph for you, old boy. I should have gone melancholy mad if some one hadn't come. I tell you, George, it's rough on us bachelors, when we come to be laid up and left to the mercies of hired nurses. If the nurses were only young and pretty, you know, a fellow might stand it; but they seem to be specially selected on account of their age and ugliness. If I ever get out of this confounded mess, I'll turn over a new leaf, burn the novels of Paul de Kock, resign brandy and soda, fast horses and expensive cigars, become virtuous and happy, and get married. How are they all at Golden Willows?"

"As usual," George answered, rather absently, his thoughts with that wonderful creature with the starry eyes and tinseled hair who had come to glorify his humdrum life.

"Does Aunt Lydia get about much?" pursued Phil; "but, of course, she doesn't."

"No; she has not been out of her room since your departure. By the way, Fanny's got a new governess, you know!"

Despite the studiously careless "by-the-way," the latter clause sounded somewhat inapposite.

"Has she? I didn't know! Has she fallen in love with you, or have you fallen in love with her—which? Fanny's governesses have always been divided into those two classes, since she had a governess—loved and loving. Ah! I see," said Philip, pointing one lean forefinger at poor George's blushes, "you've been and made an idiot of yourself for the fiftieth time! It's astonishing Fan hasn't written me a full, true and particular account long before this! Who is she?"

"Her name is Wayne—Miss Magdalen Wayne—if you mean Fanny's governess."

"Whom else should I mean? Fanny's governess, and the idol of your young affections. How fondly the fellow dwells on her name! Miss—Magdalen—Wayne! It's a pretty name, too! Is she?"

"Beautiful!" exclaimed George, rapturously, "the loveliest girl you ever saw!"

"I don't believe it. Miss Fletcher had sandy hair and freckles, and you called her lovely. I don't believe it! You have no more eye for beauty, George Barstone, than an old he-goat! What's her style—the light or the dark?"

"Miss Wayne is fair," replied George, rather subdued by the sick man's cynicism. "Blue-gray eyes—lovely eyes, Phil—and golden hair—real golden hair. She isn't like Miss Fletcher in the least. She's a lady to her finger-tips. You ought to hear her play and sing. Even you, cold-blooded reptile that you are, would knock under in ten minutes!"

"And where did you pick up this peerless paragon?"

"None of your sneers, Phil! Here in New York; and very sorry the people she was with were to lose her. Don't think this is like my old scrapes. It's another affair altogether, and I never was half so serious about anything in the whole course of my life."

"Indeed! And when am I to congratulate you? Perhaps you have already proposed?"

"I should have, only for you. I'll ask her to marry me, before I'm three hours back to Golden Willows!"

"By Jove! he does mean business!" cried Philip Barstone. "He knows his own mind for once. And the wedding will take place the week after. I'm certain, for the impressible George won't be able to wait!"

"I shouldn't wait long if it depended on me, that's certain; but Miss Wayne may say no."

"Fanny's governess! My dear boy, modesty's a lovely virtue in youth—lovely as rare; but don't you think you're rather overdoing it? Miss Wayne say no? I'm rather short of funds, George, and I want my purse replenished; so I'll lay you ten to one she snaps at you like a cat at a mouse."

George Barstone got up from his cousin's bedside with an impatient frown.

"You don't know Miss Wayne, Phil," he said, walking up and down. "I might lose my temper, only for that. You don't know her. She isn't like Miss Fletcher, and she isn't like any governess we ever had at Golden Willows. If I don't marry her—and mind, such an event is more than doubtful, for the best men in Millford are after her—life won't be worth a brass button! I spoke to Aunt Lydia before I left, and I shall propose to Miss Wayne directly when I get back."

"Just as you please, old fellow," said Philip. "If it be serious, you have my best wishes, of course. Go in and win, dear boy, and my blessing be upon your virtuous endeavors!"

George remained two days in New York, at the urgent solicitation of his cousin.

"It's so horrible lonely here!" Mr. Philip Barstone grumbled. "If you had any bowels of compassion, you wouldn't be in such a deuced hurry to desert a fellow to his fate and his beef tea. But I see how it is. That gray-eyed, golden-haired governess has bewitched you; and a chap like you, in love, is company for neither man nor beast!"

"I dare say I am rather restless, Phil," George said, apologetically. "I promised Aunt Lydia I would let her know how you were as soon as possible, and I know she'll be anxious."

"You couldn't write and tell her, I suppose?" Philip said, rather sulkily. "However, go, and may the gods that watch over fools and lovers smile propitiously upon you! Go home. My unlovely old nurse, and grumpy Masterson, are better and livelier companions than you, sitting yonder staring at the wall, and sighing like a furnace. Go; the sooner the better!"

George Barstone, nothing loth, departed, and reached Millford as rapidly as the "resonant steam eagle" could convey him. The air of the sultry summer afternoon was opaque with amber mist, through which Mr. Barstone drove like the wind.

"I wonder if I shall find her at home? I wonder if I will get a chance to speak to her this evening? Good heavens! if that rich, addle-pated idiot, Goldham, has proposed before me, and been accepted!"

Mr. Barstone set his teeth at the maddening supposition, and lashed Sam, the pony, into a furious gallop. He flung the reins to Bill, when he reached Golden Willows, and entered the house. Ominous stillness reigned. The rooms below were deserted, the piano closed. No one was visible. George rang the bell and the housemaid, dipping and smiling, appeared.

"Where's Miss Winters? Where's Miss Wayne?" said the young man, with startling abruptness.

"Miss Winters and Miss Wayne has gone to a picnic, sir," responded the smiling damsel.

"Gone to a picnic? Where? Who with?"

Excitement unsettled Mr. Barstone's grammar.

"Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Goldham took 'em, sir," said the smiling one, unconscious of the dagger she was plunging in her master's breast. "The picnic at Blueberry Bank, and they've been gone since early morning."

George Barstone glared vindictively at her, and then stalked, in sullen majesty, out of the room and up-stairs. His worst fears were realized. Sam Goldham, the odious, had her, and nothing remained for him but a double dose of prussic acid! He scowled blackly at his own image in the dressing-glass, and savagely twitched his necktie straight.

"I don't set up for a beauty!" George muttered, bitterly; "but I'll be hanged if I'm not a better-looking fellow than that bull-necked, blear-eyed, driveling dotard, Sam Goldham! If she accepts him she is worthy of nothing but my deepest contempt. I'll go to this confounded picnic. I'll see for myself; and, if my fears prove true, I'll send women and matrimony to the deuce for the rest of my natural life!"

He could not wait to see his aunt. He set off at once, and reached the picnic grounds as the sun was setting in a glory of golden light. And through the golden glow, radiant as a vision, he saw Magdalen Wayne coming toward him, side by side with the odious Goldham. But George's heart need not have sunk straight into his boots, for Mr. Goldham's face was by no means lit up with the rapture of an accepted lover, and Miss Wayne looked altogether weary and listless.

"Hallo, Barstone!" cried Mr. Goldham. And there Mr. Goldham paused, aghast at the expression Mr. Barstone's countenance wore.

Miss Wayne's weary face brightened suddenly. She held out her hand with a blush and a smile that made the young man giddy with new-born hope.

"Such an unexpected pleasure, Mr. Barstone! We did not expect you for a week. Fanny will be so pleased!"

Fanny! What did Mr. Barstone care for Fanny? In one instant his face was radiant.

"And your cousin," Miss Wayne went on, drooping a little before that electric glow. "I hope you left him better?"

"No—yes. That is, Miss Wayne, they're going to dance. May I have the honor?" cried George, incoherently.

But Miss Wayne was engaged to Mr. Goldham, and after that they were to go home. But the bright glance with which she told him almost consoled Mr. Barstone for the disappointment.

"I knew she couldn't care for that donkey!" thought Mr. Barstone, moving off in search of Fanny. "And how beautifully she blushed at sight of me! I was a fool and a madman to doubt her for a moment, or fancy she would sell herself to Sam Goldham for his hundred thousand dollars!"

"Good gracious, George!" Miss Winters shrilly cried, as he came up. "You have given me quite a turn! How's Phil?"

"A little off his feed," answered George; "but as well as can be expected. Don't worry about him, Fanny. He isn't worrying about you!"

In the luminous dust of the summer evening the picnickers went home—George, as he came, by himself, Miss Wayne still with Mr. Goldham. Golden Willows was the first house they reached, and there they alighted to partake of tea. The lamps were lit in the pleasant parlors, and a tempting supper laid out under their sparkling lights.

"Oh, hang it!" thought George, eying Mr. Goldham in disgust, "will he never let her go? The egregious ninny will stick to Miss Wayne like a leech, I suppose, until midnight."

But for once the Fates smiled on George. A servant handed him a letter as he stood glowering in the doorway.

"For Miss Wayne, sir, and I can't get through to give it to her."

George glanced at the letter.

"From that old nurse in New Hampshire," he thought. "It will get her away from Goldham."

He made his way to where she sat.

"Will you step out into the hall a moment, Miss Wayne? you are wanted. Mr. Goldham will excuse you."

She rose at once and followed him out. He gave her the letter.

"From nurse Rachel!" she exclaimed. "I am so glad! Thanks, Mr. Barstone, for my delivery!"

She ran out, laughing into the silvery twilight. He saw her take the path leading to the walk, and disappear. Half an hour passed. George walked under the trees, smoking and waiting; but Magdalen did not reappear. Another quarter of an hour; then he flung away his cigar, and struck resolutely down the Willow walk.

Magdalen sat on the bank, her hands folded, looking at the solemn, shining water. Her face was very pale in the silvery light.

"You are looking whiter and more mournful than a spirit, Miss Wayne," he said, gently. "No bad news, I trust?"

Magdalen looked up.

"No," she said. "They are all well at home. It is not that. They have sent for me, I suppose?"

She was rising to go; but he made a blind, sudden motion to detain her.

"Magdalen—Miss Wayne—don't go. I want you to stay. I want you to listen to me."

One glance up in his agitated face, and she knew, before he had uttered another word, what was coming. She recoiled a pace, then stood still.

What George Barstone said, heaven knows—he never knew himself. Brokenly, incoherently, he told the story he had come to tell—the story that all the eloquence of a Cicero must resolve into three poor words:

"I love you!"

She shrank away and covered her face with both hands, quick thrills of rapture filling her heart, and telling her that she loved him too. At his passionate pleading, she looked up.

"Don't! don't!" she said, brokenly; "pray don't! Oh, Mr. Barstone."

"Don't say no, Magdalen! For God's sake, don't say no! You don't know how I love you! Don't say no!"

She had grown marble-white and cold. She drew further away, and put out her hands to keep him off.

"I cannot say either yes or no to-night, Mr. Barstone. Give me time to think. Wait until to-morrow, and you shall have your answer."

She was gone with the words on her lips; and George Barstone, dizzy and blind with emotion, stood alone under the shining stars.