At breakfast time, as the other guests were coming downstairs, Mrs. Van
Rensselaer beckoned Charles inside the dining-room door, and gave him
his message in a low tone.
"It will be all right, Mr. Winthrop. Your offer will be accepted
gratefully, but she asks you to be kind enough to leave her to herself
until the time for the ceremony. She is so much shaken by this whole
thing that she is afraid to talk about it, lest it will unnerve her.
She says she does not need to talk it over, that you are very kind, and
if you have any message, you can send it by me after breakfast."
"Thank you, thank you!" said Charles, his face bright with the joy of
knowing that his strange suit had been successful. He was disappointed,
of course, not to see the girl at once, but it would not be long before
she was his wife, and he could talk with her as much as he pleased.
After all, there was something wonderful in her trusting him enough to
marry him, when she had seen him but twice. Had she, perhaps, had the
same feeling about him that he had about her? Had that been the
explanation of the light in her eyes?
These thoughts played a happy trill in his heart as he greeted his
father and mother and seated himself at the table. All through the
meal, he was planning the message he would send to his beloved.
When her step-mother had left the room, Dawn had fastened the door
securely against all intrusion. She was determined to have to herself
what little time was left.
On the couch, under her window was spread the beautiful frock which her
step-mother had prepared for her to wear. It was of white satin, rich
and elaborate, and encrusted with much beautiful lace, which had been in
her father's family for years, and was yellow with age. It was
traditional that all the brides of the house had worn these rare laces.
Dawn hated the frock and the lace. She would much rather have worn a
simple muslin of her own mother, but as the marriage was not to her
taste, why should her dress be, either? What mattered it? Let them all
have their way with her.
Mrs. Van Rensselaer had taken much pride in preparing the beautiful
garments, but Dawn knew why. She knew that it was for others to look
upon, so that they would praise the step-mother for having been so good
to the child who had been thrust upon her care under circumstances
which, to put it mildly, were unpleasant. It spoke of no loving
kindness toward her.
And so Dawn did not go over to the couch, as many another girl might
have done, to examine again the filmy hand-embroidered garments, the
silk stockings, and the dainty satin slippers, sewed over with
seed-pearls that were also an heirloom in the family. They meant to her
nothing but signs of her coming bondage.
Instead, she went to the little three-legged mahogany stand, where she
had placed in a tall pitcher her spray of rosebuds. She bent over to
take in their delicate fragrance, and the eyes of him who had given them
to her seemed to be looking into her soul again, as twice they had
looked before.
It was a strange thing--and she thought of it afterward many times--that
she did not yet know who he was, and had never stopped to question. It
had not even occurred to her to wonder if he were a relative or only a
friend, or how he came to be in her home. She accepted him as she would
have accepted a respite in some quiet place for her fevered spirit, or
the visit of an angel with a message of strength from heaven. She had a
vague feeling that if he had come before things might have been
different.
She knelt beside the stand and let her hot cheek rest against a cool
bud; she touched her lips to another, and then laid the roses on her
eyelids. It seemed almost like a pitying human hand upon her spirit,
and comforted her tired heart. She felt that she was growing old, very,
very old, in these last few hours, to meet the requirements of her
wedding day, and the touch of the buds seemed to steady and help her, as
her mother's hand and lips might have done.
By and by she would have to get up and put on those fine garments lying
over there in the morning sunlight, and go downstairs, for them all to
stare at her misery; but now she would forget it all for a little while,
and just think of her new-found friend, who had looked at her with such
a wonderful smile--a smile in which there seemed no place for
fault-finding or sternness or grim solemnity--the things which had
seemed to make up the main part of her girlhood life.
Meantime, Mr. Winthrop and his host had gone to meet the train, upon
which the expectant bridegroom would arrive.
As they neared the tavern that served as a station for the new railroad,
they saw an old man, a woman, and two little children sitting upon a
settle on the front stoop. The man arose and came a step or two toward
them, and Mr. Winthrop saw that it was William McCord.
He seemed embarrassed and he spoke apologetically:
"Mr. Winthrop, sir, I don't jest know what you'll think about me bein'
here--I don't, and I'm sorry's I can be about it; but, you see, I knowed
Harrington pretty well. I knowed he might find a way to smooth it all
over and pull the wool over your eyes, and I'd passed my word I'd come
here with her and stop the marriage, if so be it turned out you couldn't
or wouldn't feel called upon to do so. I didn't count on your comin'
down to the train. You see, we ben watchin' every train sence yesterday,
to make sure he didn't get away to the house without our seein' him.
That poor girl there ain't et scarce a mouthful sence she started from
home--only just a drop o' coffee now an' then--and she ain't slep'
neither. She's jest keepin' alive to hunt him up and try to persuade
him to come home to her an' the children. You see, I had to let her
come. I couldn't say no. She was up here day 'fore yesterday, when I
come to see you. She didn't want I should tell you, because she ain't
got the clo'es and fixin's she'd like to hev you see her in, but she was
determined to come----"
He paused and looked back toward the bench where the woman and the
children sat.
Mr. Winthrop's face had taken on a look of distress as he recognized
William McCord. He turned to his companion and explained in a low tone,
"This is the man who brought me the evidence."
Mr. Van Rensselaer regarded the man with keen eyes, and decided at once
that any word from a man with such a face was as good as an affidavit.
When William looked toward the woman her worn face flamed crimson, then
turned deadly white again. She must have been unusually pretty not so
very many years ago, but sorrow, toil and poverty had left their
ineradicable marks upon her face and stripped her of all claim to beauty
now. Her dress was plain, and as neat as could be expected under the
circumstances. Her roughened hair showed an attempt to put it into
order, and her eyes looked as though she had not slept for many nights.
In spite of her shrinking, there was a dignity about her. The bony hand
that held the youngest child wore a wedding ring, now much too large for
the finger.
The oldest child, a girl apparently of five, had yellow hair and rather
bold blue eyes that reminded Mr. Winthrop startlingly of his eldest
son's when he was a small boy. The youngest, a sallow, sickly boy,
looked like his mother.
The kindly face of Mr. Winthrop was overspread with trouble, but he
grasped the humbler man's hand warmly:
"That's all right, William," he said heartily. "I suppose she felt she
must come, and there's no harm done. Only, for our friend Mr. Van
Rensselaer's sake, keep the matter as quiet as possible."
"Certainly, certainly, Mr. Winthrop, and thank you, sir," said the old
man gratefully.
Then he looked questioningly toward the woman, and took a step in her
direction.
"Alberty, this here is his father," said William McCord and withdrew
hastily.
Mr. Van Rensselaer at once engaged him in earnest conversation, giving
the other man opportunity to talk with his unknown daughter-in-law
without being observed.
The woman looked up abashed into the kindly eyes bent upon her. Yet she
felt the right was on her side, and she had no need to quail before any
one.
"It has given me great sorrow, madam, to learn of my son's behavior," he
began. "It is particularly distressing to us because he is our first
born, and deeply loved by us." He paused, overcome by his emotion, and
the dry-eyed woman, who looked as if she had long ago shed all the tears
she had to shed, glanced up wonderingly and said in a voice that
betrayed her lack of culture:
"Yes, that's one trouble with him: folks always like him too well. He
thinks he can do anything he wants, and it won't make no diff'runce.
But he can't go no further with me. I've jest made up my mind to take a
stand, even ef I have to go to that rich girl and show her them
childern."
The father in him almost shuddered at the vernacular. Of what could
Harrington have been thinking when he married this woman--Harrington,
who had been brought up amid the refinements of life, and been almost
too sensitive to unpleasant things? It was the old story of a pretty
face, and a boy far from home and acquaintances, with no one to advise,
and no danger of being found out.
"I used to like him a lot myself," went on the tired voice, "an' I might
even yet ef he'd behave himself and stay home, an' pervide good fer us
like he used to." There was a pleasant drawl to her tone, like a weary
child's. The father's heart was touched.
"Has my son sent you money during his absences?" The question had to be
asked, but it cut the old gentleman to the heart to speak the words.
She turned dull eyes on him.
"Never a cent! He always said he was havin' a hard time to get money
enough to keep goin', business was so bad, but I look notice he was
dressed up good and smart every time he come home, which wa'n't often."
She sighed as if it did not matter much.
"I could stand it all," she began again in her monotonous tone, "but I
can't stand him gettin' married again. It ain't right, and it ain't the
law, an' I knew ef I didn't stop it, nobody would, so I come on."
"That was right," sighed the old gentleman, fumbling in his pocket,
"perfectly right. Here, I want you to take this with you."
He handed her a roll of bills, but she drew back, a red spot coming in
either sallow cheek.
"I ain't an object of charity, thank you. I put a mortgage on pap's
shack to git the money to come out here, but when I get back I've got
plenty of work, an' I can pay it off in a year or so."
"This is not charity," said the disconcerted old gentleman. "This
belongs to you. I often lend Harrington money, and sometimes give him
some, and this was to be given to him. I think it is safer with you.
He can work for his own after this, and I will see that all I should
have given him comes to your hands. I have your address. Take it for
the children. I guess I have a right to give something to my own
grandchildren," he said with a great stretch of his pride, looking down
at the two forlorn little specimens of childhood hiding, half
frightened, behind their mother's skirts.
The woman melted at once, the first warm tinge of life springing into
her eyes at the mention of her children as his relatives.
"Oh, if you put it that way, I'll take it o' course. It ain't no fault
of theirs that their father don't do right by me, and they do need a
sight of things I can't manage to get anyhow. Last winter Harry was
sick for four months--he's named after his pa, Harry is." She pushed
his hair fondly out of his eyes, and, moistening her fingers at her
lips, rubbed vigorously at a black streak on Harry's nose, at which he
as vigorously protested.
But the train was near at hand. Even then the distant rumble of its
wheels could be heard.
Mr. Van Rensselaer and William McCord drew near, the latter with an
attitude of deferential expectancy.
"Mr. Winthrop," said his host, "would it not be well to let your son's
wife meet him first?"
The old father bowed. He saw at once the wisdom of this.
"I'd like ye to stand where ye could get a glimpse of his face when he
first catches sight o' his wife. It will be a better proof that I've
told ye the truth than all the words I've said to ye," whispered
William.
"I have never doubted your word, William," said the father sadly.
With much shouting and blowing of the trumpet, the morning train
lumbered in, and the passengers began rapidly to emerge. There were
loud talk, and tooting of the horn, and a clatter of machinery, as the
fireman jumped down and attended to some detail of the engine's
mechanism. Some said he did this to show off before the gaping crowd,
who had not yet grown used to the fact that a machine could draw a
number of loaded carriages through the country, without the aid of
horses.
The two old gentlemen had rapidly withdrawn into a secluded place, by a
wide-spreading apple-tree.